BookFinder.com Report 2012 Out-of-print and in demand

The books we see for sale at a local chain bookstore or purchase new online are a small fraction of the entirety of human print culture.  In fact, 98 to 99% of all books ever published are now out of print. These are the books featured in the BookFinder.com Report.

The BookFinder.com Report is issued every fall, and the 2012 edition marks the 10th anniversary of our tracking the most sought after out-of-print books in America.

Topping our anniversary list are the “big three” of out-of-print books which perennially find their way onto the BookFinder.com Report: Sex by Madonna, Rage by Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King), and Promise Me Tomorrow by Nora Roberts.  This year’s list also marks the graduation of Marilyn by Norman Mailer, which after appearing in four straight Reports was finally reprinted by Taschen last December.

Some of the out-of-print titles new to the BookFinder.com Report include:

Pure, White and Deadly ; the Problem of Sugar by John Yudkin
First published in 1972, Professor Yudkin’s book outlines his research showing that sugar and refined sweeteners are closely associated with heart disease and type 2 diabetes. The book has shot back into demand after being highly praised in Robert Lustig’s lecture “Sugar: The Bigger Truth” which enjoyed YouTube viral success.  Yudkin’s book was reprinted in the UK in 2012 but remains out-of-print in the U.S.

Phoebe and the Hot Water Bottles by Linda Dawson
This juvenile fiction work has been out-of-print in America since 1979. It features a young girl who has millions of hot-water bottles and uses them to douse a blaze when her house catches fire. She receives a puppy for her efforts.

Big League Sales Closing Techniques by Les Dane
Les Dane has published several guides to sales techniques,  including this now out-of-print 1971 title. The guide reviews common scenarios found in sales, teaching would-be salesmen fundamental techniques for closing a deal.

Country Landscapes in Watercolor by John Blockley
Blockley demonstrates techniques of landscape and watercolor in this book which has been out-of-print since 1982.

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Madonna’s Sex most sought after out-of-print book

Madonna's Sex most sought after out-of-print book

Explicit coffee-table title continues to be in hot demand, according to Bookfinder research.

By Alison Flood

Madonna’s explicit book Sex is once again America’s most sought after out-of-print title of the year, according to BookFinder’s annual report.

The graphic coffee-table book, featuring – in the words of BookFinder, “photos of the Material Girl, without the material” – has been one of the most popular out-of-print titles in the US for years and a collector’s item since it was first published in 1992. “Since Madonna is never one to do something twice, and the fact that the once highly controversial book is less edgy than it once was leads us to guess that Sex will remain out of print,” predicted the book search engine, a subsidiary of AbeBooks, last year.

BookFinder has tracked the most searched for out-of-print titles in America over the last 12 months for its annual report, which sees romantic suspense author Nora Roberts’s novel Promise Me Tomorrow come in second.

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