Read All About Putting Father Time on the Run

NEW YORK — In tomes touting everything from elderberries to estrogen, America’s book publishing industry is cashing in on baby boomers’ fear of growing old.

In one Manhattan Barnes & Noble bookstore, more than 60 anti-aging titles pepper the aging section alone, plus there’s dozens more under fitness, nutrition and diet.

And at Dutton’s Brentwood Books in Los Angeles, more than half of all aging titles relate to slowing the effects of Father Time. “There’s a long tradition of fountain-of-youth books, but it seems they’ve left the periphery press and health-food vendors and moved into Random House and Simon & Schuster,” says store owner Doug Dutton.

Cindy Ratzlaff, associate director of Manhattan-based Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, agrees.

“It was about two years ago that we got into this market,” she says, noting the success of the best-selling “The Melatonin Miracle,” by Walter Pierpaoli, William Regelson and Carol Colman (Pocket Books, 1996). “It’s obvious to us that people care about this.”

While the American Booksellers Assn. (ABA) doesn’t break out fountain-of-youth books as a category, it reports that sales of diet / health / exercise / grooming books increased from $15.6 million in 1993 to $21.6 million in 1995.

“It’s really a confluence of science, self-interest, self-awareness and fear of death,” observes Matthew Gilbert, managing editor of the NAPRA ReVIEW, a publication of the 700-member New Age Publishing and Retailing Alliance in Eastsound, Wash.

Susan Weinberg, publishing director for HarperPerennial, publisher of Jean Carper’s “Stop Aging Now!” (1996), says that while the anti-aging book market is certainly expanding, not all books are good.

“We look for books with a specific message from a real authority in the field,” she says. “There are a lot of anti-aging studies going on right now, and as they collaborate more and more, you’ll see whole new waves of books published.”

Randy Shur, managing editor of Avery Publishing Group in Garden Park City, N.Y., says his firm also focuses on strong science and has published about 15 books relating to life extension, including Dr. Ray Sahelian’s “DHEA: A User’s Guide” this year.

“We don’t publish books on the empty promise that people will live forever,” Shur says, adding that he never puts the word “miracle” on book covers.

So what’s next on the publishing front?

“The next big [book] subject at hand is immortality, and we mean that spiritually and physically,” says Kim Weiss, spokeswoman for Florida-based Health Communications Inc., a 20-year-old firm that two weeks ago conducted an “industry think tank” called “Publishing for the 21st Century.” The weekend event brought together 20 authors with representatives from the ABA, book retailers and NAPRA ReView.

Says Weiss: “Baby boomers are in the decision-making seats now, and I think we’re very important to ourselves. Most things we go through become issues that are large, and eternal youth is one of them.”