DOS for Dummies appeared in November 1991. “Most bookstore chains did not want to stock it.” The first printing sold out in about a week. Its author, Dan Gookin, gives the first print run as 5,000 copies, and a company history gives 7,500.
The publisher kept the format, with its yellow and black cover, its icons and its humor, and applied it to other subjects. Personal Finance for Dummies, in 1994, was the first title outside technology. By the end of 1997 there were 355 titles, on subjects such as golf, red wine, Shakespeare, pregnancy and auto repair.