Which is the best-selling title on Amazon in the US right now? Is it Harper Lee's hugely anticipated second novel, Go Set a Watchman, or George RR Martin's Song of ICe and Fire fantasy series.
But you will be amazed non of these got the first spot. Instead Scottish illustrator Johanna Basford is topping the charts, with here colouring books for adults. Basford’s intricately drawn pictures of flora and fauna in Secret Garden have sold 1.4m copies worldwide to date, with the newly released follow-up Enchanted Forest selling just under 226,000 copies already.
They have drawn fans from Zooey Deschanel, who shared a link about the book with her Facebook followers, to the South Korean pop star Kim Ki-Bum, who posted an image on Instagram for his 1.6 million followers.
“It’s been crazy. The last few weeks since Enchanted Forest came out have been utter madness, but fantastic madness,” said Eleanor Blatherwick, head of sales and marketing at the books’ publisher, small British press Laurence King. “We knew the books would be beautiful but we didn’t realise it would be such a phenomenal success.”
At independent UK publisher Michael O’Mara, which has sold almost 340,000 adult colouring books to date, head of publicity, marketing and online, Ana McLaughlin, attributes the craze to the way the category has been reimagined as a means of relaxation. “The first one we did was in 2012, Creative Colouring for Grown-Ups. It sold strongly and reprinted, but it was last year that it all really mushroomed with Art Therapy, in June.
It really took off for us – selling the anti-stress angle gave people permission to enjoy something they might have felt was quite childish,” she said. The Mindfulness Colouring Book pushes this perspective particularly strongly, with its publisher telling readers that it is “filled with templates for exquisite scenes and intricate, sophisticated patterns, prompting you to meditate on your artwork as you mindfully and creatively fill these pages with colour”, and urging potential colourers to “take a few minutes out of your day, wherever you are, and colour your way to peace and calm”.
“I think it is really relaxing, to do something analogue, to unplug,” said Basford. “And it’s creative. For many people, a blank sheet is very daunting; with a colouring book you just need to bring the colour. Also there’s a bit of nostalgia there. So many people have said to me that they used to do secret colouring in when their kids were in bed. Now it is socially acceptable, it’s a category of its own. These are books for adults. The art in my books is super intricate.”
Get yours now>>
Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Coloring Book
Source