The extraordinary bestseller that no one saw coming, not even its author

The South Coast history book sold out in seven weeks.

"We were absolutely staggered," the historian and author said.

The books arrived at the South Coast History Society on November 20, having sat on Sydney's docks for three weeks due to striking wharfies.

"We had already contacted a number of retailers and they generally said yes, in very small quantities.

"The day they arrived we started distributing up and down the coast and seven weeks later they are all gone," Mr Lacey said.

The tiny Burrill Lake Newsagency was a highly successful outlet.

It put the book's promotional poster next to the EFTPOS machine so anyone buying anything, even lottery tickets, could not miss it.

"He was ringing me up several times a week asking 'please bring me another box (20 copies)'."

Other outlets followed suit and had similar success.

The story is even more remarkable because they only started putting it together in August 2023.

"I was gazing at a pile of Recollections, the society's magazine, and thought there is a lot of good history that needs to be retold," Mr Lacey said.

"It suddenly occurred to me nobody had written a history of the whole South Coast and there it was on my coffee table."

Much of the book's content comes from stories previously published in Recollections but it still had to be organised, decisions made what to include and what to omit and to fill in the gap of the history of the area between Batemans Bay and Kiama.

No more copies of the book will be printed.

"Unless people attend one of the talks I'll be giving in coming months at libraries, those who have missed out now, have missed out."

Mr Lacey will talk about South Coast history at the following libraries:

The society plans to revise the book, adding more pages and photographs plus topics that the first edition did not cover.

"We have reached out to the other 16 historical societies up and down the coast and asked what they would like added to the book."

Early suggestions include the impact of the two World Wars and a focus on women.

Printing 1500 copies of a book was quite an investment by a tiny not-for-profit but it has paid off handsomely.

"The beneficiaries have been the retailers so we've contributed significantly to the local economy and the South Coast local history societies with whom the profits from the sales are being shared.

"The author is receiving nothing other than bragging rights to having produced a 'bestseller'," Mr Lacey said.