The self-help genre emerged in the 19th century with Samuel Smiles's "Self-Help" (1859), a groundbreaking book that promoted self-improvement through hard work and sold over 250,000 copies. The movement flourished, and by the 20th century, works like Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" (1936) became cultural phenomena, transforming how millions approached personal success.
The real golden age for self-help books came in the 1980s and 1990s. Titles like Stephen Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" in 1989 flew off the shelves, with over 25 million copies sold. People were hungry for advice on getting ahead, feeling good, and finding answers within, and the industry boomed with that demand.
At its peak, self-help felt fresh and exciting. These books promised to help readers find answers within themselves. Bookstores had whole sections packed with guides promising to unlock your potential. Sales kept climbing, and by the early 2000s, it was a billion-dollar business in the US alone, feeding off a culture obsessed with self-improvement.
But these days, that momentum seems to be fading. Sure, sales are still up—UK print sales hit £50m in 2022—but a lot of folks, including me, think the spark's gone. Rather than helping us connect the dots, these books just add more dots to an already overwhelming list of things we need to figure out.
The number of books has exploded, nearly tripling in the US from 30,897 to 85,253 between 2013 and 2019, and they all seem to repeat the same messages. There's now a book for virtually everything, and they all direct us to seek answers externally rather than within ourselves, essentially teaching us to trust ourselves less in an indirect way.
Then there’s the “obvious” factor. Critics in places like Forbes and Psychology Today point out a lot of this advice is just common sense—like “be nice” or “work hard”—stretched into 300 pages. It’s starting to feel like authors are recycling ideas instead of breaking new ground.
Effectiveness is another issue. Some say these books promise too much and deliver too little. A 2020 piece from UW Magazine debates if they’re more delusion than solution, and folks on Reddit complain they’re padded with fluff, making them a slog to read.
So yeah, while the cash keeps rolling in, self-help books don’t pack the punch they used to. They peaked when they felt like a revelation, but now, with the same old recycled tips and competition from faster media, they’re losing that edge.
These days, the most effective approach to self-improvement may be simpler: identify areas for growth and track your progress consistently. Rather than purchasing books or products for every aspect of personal development, maintaining a single pocket notebook or central location for recording thoughts, ideas, and progress can be far more practical.
That's why we at Within believe a private space to casually record our thoughts—and then organize them to discover profound insights gradually while connecting the dots—is much more helpful than external sources that simply repackage old ideas we already know, ideas that don't truly come from within ourselves.
