Winning Numbers
by Daisy Maryles -- Publishers Weekly, 7/2/2001
Janet Evanovich's Seven Up has made it to #1 on all the national charts within a week of her one-day laydown for her latest Stephanie Plum bestseller. This is the second time that she has accomplished this feat—her previous book, Hot Six, also landed in the top slot its first week out. The folks at St. Martin's are particularly pleased because their author dislodged Sue Grafton from the lead; as they put it: "the numbers have overwhelmed the letters." The Plum author is packing in the crowds at her bookstore appearances: 700 people showed up at Barnes & Noble on Union Square in NYC; 540 came to see her at a Meijer Store in Detroit; 400 were at the Clark County Library in Las Vegas; and more than 600 attended a signing at Murder by the Book in Houston. St. Martin's has 360,000 copies of Seven Up in print and has backed the book with TV commercials, print ads and a seven-city tour. Evanovich's mass market bestseller is also heating up; the publisher reports 850,000 copies in print for Hot Six. Good going for an author who spent 10 years sending her work off to agents (in a recent USA Today interview she noted, "I was rejected by every agent in New York at least four times"). She finally sold her first book, a romance, in 1987 for $2,000.
