A whole lot. The book is in 22 languages. There are 17 others in print, and the Chicken Soup phenomenon has turned into a cottage industry of inspiration. Six more books are planned for each year the next five years. In one typical entry, a wrong phone number turns into a close friendship.
Canfield is the word man.
His partner, Hansen, lives in Newport Beach, Calif., and is more the dealmaker. They compiled tales they had come across in their work as motivational speakers and seminar leaders. But conventional publishers had no interest in their little stories. Undaunted, they ran off copies of their stories, put them in three-ring notebooks and went to the American Booksellers Association convention in 1993. Health Communications Inc. Three days later, they had a deal.