Listen Up, Ladies

by Daisy Maryles -- Publishers Weekly, 10/4/2004

Not that the folks at Simon & Schuster's new Spotlight Entertainment division need any advice, but we have a book proposal for them: How to Launch an Imprint and Create a Wildly Successful Bestseller at the Same Time. Well before its September 1 pub date, SSE's first title, He's Just Not That into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys, was creating a very loud buzz in the press. Since then, major reviews have helped boost the book to the #1 position at Amazon and B&N.com. The icing on the cake was a full hour with Oprah on September 22, followed that same day by Oprah After the Show interviews on the Oxygen network. The response, said executive publicity director Tracy van Straaten, "was immediate and frenzied." Authors Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, a consultant and executive story editor, respectively, for Sex and the City, have appeared on Today, Access Hollywood, McEnroe and CNN's 360 with Anderson Cooper. So intense is the demand for the book, noted van Straaten, that fans have written to Behrendt's Web site to say that they can't find the book, but hope that he can solve their romantic dilemmas.