I think it was really good marketing/promotion. I remember when I was younger, we had a book fair rep come to our classroom to talk about the new books they had for this year. And one year our rep was saying we needed to check out this new book they had about a young wizard named Harry Potter. So ended up wanting to read the book. I’m assuming many classrooms were given a similar speech and the buzz for the book grew from there.

I don’t think it’s a controversial book, just a misleading title. It doesn’t really teach techniques on how to manipulate people. It’s more of a reminder that you attract more bees with honey than vinegar.