Men's Health editor David Zinczenko may have a certain way with the ladies, but that doesn't mean America particularly wants to hear his take on relationships. In its first three months on sale, Men, Love & Sex, Zinczenko's advice book for women, has sold a scant 11,442 copies, according to Nielsen Bookscan, which tracks about 70 percent of sales for most books. Though "special sales" not tracked by Nielsen push the title's total above the 20,000 mark, it's still far behind the pace it would take to match the nearly 400,000 copies sold of Zinczenko's previous literary effort, 2004's The Abs Diet. That book went through 18 printings and spent 10 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list; Men, Love & Sex failed to crack the list.
Obviously, a hit the size of The Abs Diet requires a dose of luck as well as marketing savvy. Still, one agent familiar with both books estimates that, given the success of The Abs Diet, the heavy promotion of Men, Love & Sex (which was excerpted in Cosmopolitan) and the initial printing of over 100,000 copies, publisher Rodale would've been expecting sales of at least 10,000 copies per week for the first couple months.
Speaking for Zinczenko, a Rodale spokesman denied being disappointed with the book's performance: "Diet books are a category unto themselves, probably because it's easier to shed 20 pounds of useless fat than 180 pounds of useless boyfriend. Still, we're extremely happy with the results. The subject isn't going away and neither will the book."
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