In Japan some of the fastest selling books are how to books that show you how to get out’a town in case of a natural disaster.

The 9.0 quake of March 11 was the motivator for such books.   Even though Tokyo was at least a hundred miles from the epicenter of the quake, the public transportation systems went down.  About 6 million people walked or rode bikes home.

People who did well walking out had road maps, or had read the 2005 book Map for Walking Home in the Event of an Earthquake.  The book was the result of experiences of the editors in a 2004 earthquake.

Amazingly the book was undergoing a revision when the March 11 quake hit.  In fact one of the editors ended up walking home over the next two days, it proved to be useful in making the revisions: “For example, there were big advertising signs above the roads, which can break and fall on pedestrians, and such potentially dangerous sites we included on the maps.”-Tatsuya Nakajima, Shobunsha Publications

Since then 150,000 of the books have sold.  Prior to that, 1 million copies had sold.  Here’s one good reason such books are in demand, cell phones did not work on March 11: “People could not access online maps on their mobile phones right after the quake because telecom systems were overloaded.  That’s probably why the demand for paper maps has increased and this book has sold well since.”-Tomoko Okawa, Shobunsha Publications

A subsidiary of Shobunsha Publications has recently solved that problem, at least if you have an iPhone, a downloadable app that does not require an active cell service to work.