INTRODUCTION:

From humble beginnings, Motivational books have now colonized huge and ever-growing areas of bookshops. Best-selling titles like 'Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus', or 'Don't Worry, Make Money' promise to teach us how to fix our relationships and live 'more fully'. But are these and other come-ons, just empty assurances designed to sell a product? While the advice of philosophers like Epicurus and Schopenhauer, comes to us with the luster of intellectual achievement, modern self-help books often don't. On the whole, the Motivational literature proposes a quite consistent set of messages, centered on the acquisition of self-belief, self-esteem, and the confidence to change things and seek a better life. All of them emphasize success in personal relationships above achievement at work, although several of them stress that happiness in one’s work is important too. To summarize the most common Motivational messages:

o Believe in yourself and you can achieve anything. Social ‘barriers’ can generally be disregarded if you have the will to overcome them.

o You can’t let the world ‘happen’ to you; instead you must take control of your life.

o It may not be obvious what would make you happy in life, and what is available to you. These things have to be worked out; and then you can to strive to get them.

o Women and men are fundamentally similar on the ‘inside’, although men may have learned to be overly insular, emotionally withdrawn, and bad at communicating, whilst women may not be confident or recognize the full range of their capabilities. But in any case, both women and men can adopt new ways of thinking and behaving so that they can become fully-functioning, balanced, self-assured, emotionally intelligent people.

o Change is always possible.

Despite their huge sales and continuing popularity, self-help books have faced fierce criticism over the years. Respected psychologists like Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1987) have argued that motivational will clearly not help people to become thin, rich and well-adjusted; indeed they will probably have no effect whatsoever. While claims like Salerno's are hard to justify, there's no doubt that motivational books is a massive industry. Salerno's estimate is $8 billion a year in the US alone. That's a lot of cash and all the more reason to take a closer look at what motivational books actually contain and whether it is useful. Is this cynicism unfounded, merely motivated by jealousy or is there some substance to it? Starker (1989) counted approximately 3,700 American book titles beginning with the words ‘how to’, and this figure is only a gross underestimation of the number of self-help volumes available, because the authors are not restricted to this title. The self-help industry is a goldmine. Americans spent $563 million on motivational books in 2000 (Paul, 2001). Starker (1989) mentions that cost, accessibility, privacy and excitement are four pragmatic factors that explain the success of the self help books. Females were more likely to have a positive attitude towards self help books. Other factors that predicted a positive attitude to self-help books were: enjoyment of reading in general, stronger self-control orientation and, last but not least, a greater life satisfaction. Motivational book readers tend to have an ability to recognize relationships between thoughts, feelings and actions and want to use self-help books to improve them. Reading self help book seems to be part of an active and adequate coping style, which fits in with an individualistic culture, where individuals have the freedom to pursue happiness on their own ground. Paul (2001) describes five common motivational books myths:

· Vent your anger, and it will go away. Research shows that expressing anger can keep it alive.

· When you are down in the dumps, think yourself happy by focusing on the positive. Research shows that the result may be the opposite of what you want. It can make your misery of the moment even more apparent.

· Visualize your goals; it will help you to make them come true. Research shows that we not only need optimism about our ability to reach a given goal, but also a sharp focus on the obstacles that are in the way. You need to pay attention to the obstacles and the necessary steps to reach the goal.

· Self-affirmation will help you raise low self-esteem. Research shows that this technique is not powerful enough. We need positive feedback from people that matter to us. ‘Self-esteem is the sum of your interactions with others over a lifetime, and it’s not going to change overnight’.

· Active listening can help you communicate better with your partner. This is an appealing idea, but research shows that even happy, loving couples don’t use the technique. It may be better to take your partner seriously, to avoid hostility and to avoid arousal.

The Authoritative guide to self-help resources in mental health (Norcross et al., 2000) has brought together the reviews and ratings of more than a thousand American clinicians about 600 motivational books for different categories like schizophrenia, mood disorders, anxiety, stress-management and headaches. Starker (1989) conducted a survey on impact of motivational book on 67 volunteer hospital workers, men and woman ranging in age from 27 to 86 years of age. Starker did not make a distinction between problem focused and growth oriented self-help books for his survey. If a motivational author recommends seeking happiness in a higher income, that advice is unlikely to work out well for most readers, since research has found little relation between happiness and income. Ogles, Lambert and Craig (1991) found that reading a motivational book about coping with loss or divorce resulted in higher symptomatic relief for readers with higher initial expectations of benefit. Rosen (1987) points to the fact that the inspirational message can lead to unsubstantiated and exaggerated claims. Another danger of overly optimistic messages is that readers will take a lighthearted attitude to meaningful changes. In psychotherapy it is commonly recognized that effort is necessary for improvement and/or relapse prevention. The self-help message that the wisdom of an author guarantees heaven on earth may inspire daydreaming, but not hard work and perseverance (Mains and Scogin, 2003).

In the above back drop this paper tries to analyze the following issues:

1. To assess the need for motivational Books for Customers in Raipur City

2. To assess the Buying Behavior of Customers towards motivational Books in Raipur City

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:

In order to analyse the above mentioned issues, the researcher conducted a survey in Raipur City. The researcher has focused on the opinion of readers. The data was collected through questionnaire. The questionnaire was administered to 100 customers. The questions in questionnaire focused on the need and buying behaviour of customers towards motivational books. The data collected was analysed with the help of percentages, F Test and correlation coefficient

FINDINGS OF THE STUDY:

Following were the important findings of the study:

1. Impact of Age and Income on Purchase of motivational Books

(a) In the age group of 20 – 30 yrs , who has less than Rs. 20,000/- per month in hand to spend; spends approximately Rs. 400 – 500/- per month on news paper/ magazines/ books, however 75% of them invest Rs. 200/- to 300/- per month on self help books. Rest 25% does not go for purchasing such books at all, but further analysis reveals that even they read such books by taking from others / library.

(b) Between age group of 31 to 40, majority was in the income group of Rs. 20,000/- to Rs. 50,000/- per month. This group spends more than Rs. 500/- per month on newspapers/ magazines / books. In this group investment on self help books is less than Rs. 200/- per month for 45% and between Rs. 200/- to 300/- per month for 55%.

(c) For 40 yrs and above age group, the monthly income found to be Rs 50,000/- and higher, however their expenditure is same as previous group, the only difference is in the investment pattern, which is 30% and 70% respectively.

(d) It was found that there is a linear relationship between age and readership. The coefficient correlation was 0.7222

(e) It was found that there is a linear relationship between education and readership. The coefficient correlation was 0.651

2. It was found that there is no significant variation in reading habits related to self help groups across gender groups

Sum of Squares

Mean Square

Sig

Between Samples

Within sample

Total

2.647

47.388

50.036

0.529

0.929

0.570

0.723

3. The number of books read by the sample surveyed was below 20 (till date).

Total books read till date	Percentage
Less than 5	20%
5 to 10	52%
11 to 20	28%

4. Out of the total sample of 60, 85% people said that they found some of the ideas mentioned in the books useful and rest 15% said they did not. However, out of 85% only 76% have applied those ideas in their life and rest 24% did not.

5. The category of books read by readers are as follows

Category	Percentage of Readers
Self Awareness / Self Improvement	78 %
Personal Growth	76 %
Motivational / Success Related	69 %
Relationship Based	62 %
Management Related	54 %
Fitness / Wellness etc.	34 %

6. The general ideas captured out of these books were mostly related to Time Management, Self Improvement, Relationship Improvement, Communication Improvement, Stress Management, Personality Development and General Management topics.

7. The most preferred Indian author is Robin Sharma and foreign author is Stephen Covey.

8. 80% of the sample accepted that they recommend these books to others in view to help them, which indicates that these 80% people have reaped out some benefits or at-least impressed by the self help books.

9. 15 % of sample said that these books are sheer wastage of time and money, but 80% agreed to the facts that, these books give them better understanding of various day to day situations and effective ways to deal with them. 78 % agreed that by reading such books, motivation level gets improved, it develops positive attitude and helps in self improvement.

10. Another important fact which emerged out from this research was that almost 70% people claimed the change in attitude, however, it was temporary.

11. 82% of the targeted sample was of the opinion that only the people who are highly educated read such type of books and closest to this at 78% was another reason which stated that the people who are undergoing some turbulence in life resort to such readings. On the flip side of the coin 15 % said that only the people with low self esteem read such books.

12. When it comes down to purchasing these books, 60% said that they buy from bookstores only and 30% said that if they like the book, they purchase it from anywhere, specially from the pirated / second-hand book market, where it costs less.

13. Coming down to the pricing part of such books, 62% were of the opinion that these books are slightly over-priced and 38% said it’s not.

14. Majority of the sample (83 %) said that such type of books are written to actually help the society, 41% said that motive behind writing such books is to achieve name and fame. Only 16% were of the opinion that reason for writing such books is to make money, nothing else.

CONCLUSION:

The trend shows that in general when people are studying, struggling and trying to settle down in life or trying to achieve their aspirations, they are more inclined towards motivational books as problems faced are more and they don’t want to discuss it with others. Once they settle down in life the inclination towards such readings goes down significantly i.e. and once again when responsibilities become demanding usually after the age of 40 yrs the readership of such books increases noticeably The results clearly shows that as per age and income group the readership varies significantly but even then such books are read by most of the people. Very few claimed permanent changes, in their life due to motivational books but that was with repetition of reading, continuous reinforcement of ideas and only after putting conscious efforts.

REFERENCES:

1. Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional Intelligence. New York: Bantam Books.

2. Mains, J. A., and Scogin, F. R. (2003). The effectiveness of self-administered treatments: A practice friendly review of the research. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 59, 237–246.

3. Norcross, J. C., Santrock, J. W., Campbell, L. F., Smith, T. P., Sommer, R., and Zuckermann, E. L.(2000). Authoritative guide to self-help resources in mental health. New York: Guilford Press.

4. Ogles, B. M., Lambert, M. J., and Craig, D. (1991). A comparison of self-help books for coping with Rabasca, L. (2000). Self-help sites; A blessing or a bane. Monitor on Psychology, 13, 4.

5. Rosen, G. M. (1987) Self-help treatment books and the commercialization of psychotherapy. American psychologist, 42, 46–51.

6. Rosen, G. M., Glasgow, R, and Moore, T. E. (2003). Self-help or hype? The science and business of giving psychology away. In S. Lilienfeld (Ed.), Science and pseudoscience in contemporary clinical psychology. New York: Guilford.

7. Starker, S. (1988). Do-it-yourself therapy; The prescription of self-help books by psychologists. Psychotherapy, 25, 142–146.

8. Starker, S. (1989/2002). Oracle at the supermarket; The American preoccupation with self-help books.

9. Paul, A.M. (2001). Self-Help: Shattering the Myths. Psychology Today, March

10. www.amazon.com

11. www.cgu.edu/pages/1871/asp

Received on 02.09.2011 Accepted on 28.10.2011

Asian J. Management 2(4): Oct.-Dec., 2011 page 159-161