There's even a bigger lesson here...

So Tavis Smiley's Convenant with Black America published by Third World Press is selling like crazy. PW discusses the book's success:

"Thanks in large part to the efforts of Tavis Smiley, Covenant with Black America, edited by Smiley, and published in February by Third World Press in Chicago has been a big hit for the small press. Covenant sold out of its 50,000-copy first print run within a few weeks of publication, and is already in its third print run for a total of 100,000 copies in print. The numbers for the fourth print run are being discussed, but have not been decided. And Third World Press's distributor, IPG, predicts that by the end of March, they will have shipped out 100,000 copies of Covenant."

There's a larger lesson here as well, which was well articulated by the president of IPG, ""The fact that this book is doing so well makes the statement that African-American books, if promoted well and if they have something to say, there's a big market for them," Suchomel said."

I agree, although it is also helps that Tavis has crazy media access.