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All Time Best-Selling Book Is Likely Found In Your Home

All Time Best-Selling Book Is Likely Found In Your Home

Last updated on: October 6, 2024 at 6:28 pm by Alice H. Murray

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All Time Best-Selling Book Is Likely Found In Your Home 2024-10-06T18:28:07-04:00 Alice H. Murray

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Brown Bible with gold lettering displayed closed on a stand

It’s #1! The Bible is the all time best-selling book [Image by stempow from Pixabay]

A familiar TV ad queries, “What’s in your wallet?’ A better question to answer is “What’s on your bookshelf ?” Surprisingly, the world’s all time best-selling book is likely found in your home. That book? The Bible, at least according to Guinness World Records.

Best-Seller Lists

Aren’t best-sellers found on best-seller lists though? The Bible isn’t identified on any lists readers typically check. How can the Good Book be #1 if it’s not even listed on a weekly best-seller list?

Several reasons explain this puzzling situation. First, numerous publishers produce Bibles, and the book comes in many different translations. When combined, all those sales push the Bible to the #1 sales spot. Second, the best-seller lists normally only contain new releases, which the Bible is not. Finally, best seller lists are based on weekly data. Bible sales remain steady throughout the calendar year. Best-seller lists, however, are influenced by spurts of sales connected to new releases.

How Many Bibles Are Out There?

Projections indicate more than 6 billion Bibles are currently in print. In an average year, 100 million Bibles are printed.

But books sales aren’t the only means by which Bibles get into readers’ hands. Ironically the Good Book is the most shoplifted book in the world. Gideons International distributes copies of the Bible in hotel rooms at the rate of almost 700,000 per year. And the Bible is the book which is the most checked-out from US libraries.

Is The Bible Found Just In The US?

The Bible’s popularity isn’t limited to the United States. In fact, it is the most read book in the world. Even with the availability of the text online, sales of the physical book continue to rise globally. Its translation into over 3,000 languages underscores the Bible’s universal appeal.

The United States provides a huge market for the Good Book. Over $425 million in revenue annually comes from Bible sales in this country alone, accounting for one-fourth of yearly sales of newly printed Bible sales. The robust American market means 88% of American households own a Bible with the average household owning not one, not two, but four Bibles.

View down an aisle of a bookstore with a woman looking at a bookshelf

Book sales of the Bible are strong globally [Photo by John Michael Thomson on Unsplash]

Sales Trends For The All Time Best-Selling Book

Since 1950, sales of Bibles in the US have more than doubled, with the book claiming the number one seller spot in 2023. Typically, the holiday season is the peak-selling time for the book, with December being the month with the highest sales. And what version or translation do American readers prefer? Survey results found the King James Version the number one choice of 31% with the New International Version a distant second at 13%.

What’s Behind The Good Book’s Popularity?

Of all the books ever produced in any language, the Bible enjoys the greatest popularity. Crack marketing techniques do not drive the booming and constant sales of Bibles. Further, sales are not driven by government decree or the latest societal trends. A desire to learn about God and to know Him more deeply, instead, motivates purchasers and readers of the Bible.

Picture of Chinese Chairman Mao-Tse-Tung holding his little red book with various people looking on.

Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book is the #2 all-time best-selling book [Image From Wikimedia Commons]

No coercion to buy a Bible exists, unlike, for example, the situation with Chairman Mao Tse-Tung’s The Little Red Book. Produced in 1964, that work of Communist propaganda became almost mandatory to own and carry during China’s Cultural Revolution. Interestingly, popular demand trumped the Chinese government’s efforts to suppress the distribution of Bibles in that country. When suppression efforts failed, those officials decided to control the number allowed, resulting in the distribution 0f 50 million Bibles, well short of the demand for them.

The Top Ten For All-Time Best Seller

Three religious works, from Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism, respectively can be found in the top ten list of all time best-sellers. These include the Bible (#1), the Qu’ran (#3), and the Bhavagad Gita (#9). Chairman Mao’s The Little Red Book ranks #2. The #4 spot goes to the world’s most popular reference work and symbol of Chinese culture, the New China Dictionary (aka Xinhua Zidian). The remaining books in the top ten are A Tale of Two Cities (by Charles Dickens), The Little Prince (a children’s novel by Antoine de Saint-Exupery), Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, The Alchemist (by Paulo Coelho), and Scouting For Boys (by Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts).

Picture of the Quran on a table with blue beads atop it

The Qur’an is the third all-time best-selling book [Image by Tariq Abro from Pixabay]

All Time Best-Selling Book

The Bible being the “Good Book” may compel many to purchase and read it. But recognizing the universal appeal and massive popularity the Bible holds as the all time best-selling book should cause buyers and owners alike to see the work in a new light. It’s not only God’s Word, but it is the word in top-selling books ever.

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About Alice H. Murray

After 35 years as a Florida adoption attorney, Alice H. Murray now pursues a different path as Operations Manager for End Game Press. With a passion for writing, she is constantly creating with words. Her work includes contributions to several Short And Sweet books, The Upper Room, Chicken Soup For The Soul, Abba’s Lessons (from CrossRiver Media), and the Northwest Florida Literary Review. Alice is a regular contributor to GO!, a quarterly Christian magazine in the Florida Panhandle, and she has three devotions a month published online by Dynamic Women in Missions. Her devotions have also appeared in compilation devotionals such as Ordinary People Extraordinary God (July 2023) and Guideposts’ Pray A Word A Day, Vol. 2 (June 2023) and pray a word for Hope (September 2023). Alice’s first book, The Secret of Chimneys, an annotated Agatha Christie mystery, was released in April 2023 with a second such book, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, to be released in April 2025. On a weekly basis, Alice posts on her blog about current events with a humorous point of view at aliceinwonderingland.wordpress.com. You can read more about the author here.

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