Dear Author: Romance Novel Reviews, Industry News, and Commentary

Jun

20

2007

Girls Need Retro Instruction Books Too

by Jane ♦ Leave a Comment ♦ Email This Post ♦ Print This Post ♦

Tagged: How-to-books, non-fiction, Self-help-books
Filed under: Publishing News

Capitalizing on the success of the back to basics instruction manual for boys of all ages, publishers are now seeking its sister publication. The Dangerous Book for Boys detailed simple things like how to make a paper airplane and how to skip rocks. It’s retro, low tech appeal has been huge. The UK version was a bestseller for a year and in the US, it sits at No. 8 on the USA Today list with 635,000 copies in print.

Scholastic with its The Girls’ Book: How to Be the Best at Everything and Collins with The Daring Book for Girls will try to meet or exceed the success of DBoB. I guess as a mother of a young girl, I wouldn’t mind teaching her how to make an airplane and skip rocks rather than french braid her hair.

Via USA Today.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 6:38 am and is filed under Publishing News. Tagged: How-to-books, non-fiction, Self-help-books. You can feed this entry. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Jane is a long time romance reader whose passion is, you guessed it, reading. She's currently loving contemporary authors like Sarah Mayberry and Kristan Higgins but her first love will always be the historical. Some of her old time favorites are Amanda Quick and Johanna Lindsey and some of the new favorites are Sherry Thomas, Joanna Bourne and Claudia Dain. Email this author | All posts by Jane

One comment to “Girls Need Retro Instruction Books Too”

1. 1

   by Kalen Hughes June 20th, 2007 at 9:59 am Publisher Ellie Berger says the books overlap but cater to the differences in boys’ and girls’ interests. For example, advice to boys is: How to get out of quicksand. For girls: How to make your own luxury bubble bath. Tom Dwyer, a book buyer for Borders, says The Dangerous Book for Boys is “neither politically correct nor politically incorrect.” He found its advice about girls (”It is important to listen”) “charming.” My only response is you have got to me sh*tting me. If my parents had given me a book on how to make bubble bath when my brother got one about skipping rocks and skinning rabbits and blowing things up, I’d have used it to demonstrate that I knew how to build a fire! Reply