Periodically I get sales data from Nielsen (affiliated with Nielsen Ratings). Velociteach tracks all reported retail sales of every PMP Exam resource we know about (and there are quite a few). It’s mostly a boring practice, with the same general trends taking place, and the same few books taking up the lion’s share of the sales. In fact unit sales of my book and Rita’s book have dwarfed the rest of the pack for as long as I’ve been tracking this.

When my book was introduced in 2003, it quickly rose to be #2 in sales, but it always lagged Rita’s book. She had a 6 or 7 year head start, and, even though we both grew and passed everyone else, it stayed solidly at #2 throughout the ensuing years. But lately we’ve gotten figures that have started reporting The PMP Exam: How To Pass On Your First Try as #1 in unit sales in given periods. They aren’t 100% consistent over a long period of time, so it’s too early to say “we’re #1, period” but it does look like that is what is taking place.

This seems to have happened organically. We’ve worked hard to make The PMP Exam: How To Pass On Your First Try the best resource out there, keeping it up to date. In fact, there have been 8 reprints of the 4th edition already, and I’m working on the 9th. Each reprint makes corrections, updates, additions, and changes (kaizen) to keep the material fresh and relevant. I’m not aware of anyone else who keeps on top of trends and information related to the exam like this, and it’s my pledge to continue to make it better all the time. That’s one reason why The PMP Exam is used by approximately 40 PMI local chapters as their study and training resource of choice, and this number is growing each quarter.

And honestly, all of this is a tribute to Rita Mulcahy. She was a talented person and an incredibly tough competitor while she was alive. She was a pioneer in this industry and set the standard for all of us.

This is an exciting place to be, as I’m planning to release the upcoming Agile PMI-ACP book.

Now for some boring details: the figures I am referring to are reported by Nielsen and only track retail sales. They track sales from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and many other retailers, but they don’t track sales from distributors, sales of ancillary products, classroom, wholesale, or direct sales, any and all of which can affect the outcome. By the same measure, however, they don’t track sales of my book in kits, which would skew the results significantly in our favor. They also don’t factor in translations (although I’d love to). These figures only relate to ISBNs 978-0972967341 and 978-1932735185.