Overview
What to Expect When You're Expecting is a pregnancy guide, now in its fifth edition, authored by Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel and published by Workman Publishing. Its first edition, authored by Murkoff, Arlene Eisenberg, and Sandee Hathaway, was originally published in 1984. The book consistently tops The New York Times Best Seller list in the paperback advice category, is one of USA Todays "25 Most Influential Books" of the past 25 years and has been described as "the bible of American pregnancy". , per the publisher and the author's agent, over 22 million copies were in print in . According to USA Today, 93 percent of all expectant mothers who read a pregnancy guide read What to Expect When You're Expecting. In 2005, WhatToExpect.com launched. The What to Expect mobile app launched on iOS in 2009 and Android in 2014. In 2012, What to Expect When You're Expecting was adapted into a film released by Lionsgate.
History
Author Heidi Murkoff cites her own quest for reassuring information during her first pregnancy as being the motivation for developing What to Expect When You're Expecting. Murkoff collaborated with her mother Arlene Eisenberg, a freelance journalist, and her sister Sandee Hathway, a nurse, when writing the first three editions of the pregnancy guide.
Its iconic title emerged when an employee of the publisher suggested it as a subtitle for the temporarily titled manuscript, "Pregnancy:" By publication, the subtitle had claimed the top spot.
Although the book's initial print run was small, word of mouth and innovative promotion led to sales that increased in every subsequent year.
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).