SALT LAKE CITY – Stephen R. Covey, author of “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” as well as several other books that together have sold millions of copies, has died. He was 79.

In a statement sent to employees of a Utah consulting firm Covey co-founded, his family said the writer and motivational speaker died at a hospital in Idaho Falls, Idaho, early Monday due to complications from a bicycle accident in April.

“In his final hours, he was surrounded by his loving wife and each one of his children and their spouses, just as he always wanted,” the family said.

Covey was hospitalized after being knocked unconscious in the bike crash on a steep road in the foothills of Provo, Utah, about 45 miles south of Salt Lake City.

Covey, a Utah native, was considered a pioneer in the self-help genre aimed at helping readers become more productive in their lives, most notably with “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” which sold more than 20 million copies in 38 languages.

“This was one of the first books in recent times that was really directed at prioritizing the way you worked, so you could be more effective as an individual” said Adrian Zackheim, president and publisher of Portfolio, a business imprint at Penguin Group (USA).e Tribune.