A HIGH FIVE FAMILY
Janet Evanovich finally scores on the hardcover bestseller charts with High Five, her fifth book featuring N.J.-based bounty hunter Stephanie Plum. The author's fan base is growing fast and publisher St. Martin's Press reports that her Web site (www.evanovich.com) gets about 300,000 hits per month. First printing for the book was 90,000, and two more printings, for 20,000 and 15,000, bring the total copies in print to 125,000. She is in the midst of a 15-city tour that ends on July 21. Evanovich began her writing career with romances in the late '80s (she has 12 to her credit) and her first mystery, One for the Money, was named a PW Best Book back in 1994. That book was also optioned by Tri-Star Motion Pictures for close to $1 million and is now in pre-production. She and her husband run Evanovich Inc., with their son as financial manager and their daughter as Web master and newsletter editor. An interesting statistic that Evanovich enjoys throwing out when on tour is that there are about 14,000 licensed bail agents in the U.S., and about 48% of them are women, many serving as their own enforcement.

LANDERS PROVES TO BE THE RIGHT Rx
Warner Books published Live Now, Age Later: Proven Ways to Slow Down the Clock earlier last month with an initial printing of 50,000. Within about two weeks, the publisher had to go back to press six more times, making the total in print 213,500. Author Isadore Rosenfeld, M.D., made numerous TV appearances, including Charlie Rose, and did two national TV satellite tours and one radio satellite tour to move those books. But it was Ann Landers who really pumped up sales. In her column, she advised her readers to "run, don't walk, to your favorite bookstore immediately" and went on to suggest that they buy two copies -- "one for yourself and another copy for someone you love."

RELATIONSHIP MARKETING WORKS
At least it d s for Bill Phillips, author of Body for Life, a HarperCollins bestseller. The author, who is also the editor-in-chief of Muscle Media magazine, set up a three-tiered pre-pub campaign that included sending a sample chapter, e-mail announcements and postcards to about one million fans. He also promoted it on his Web site (www.bodyforlife.com). That activity was enough to get the book to the top of Amazon.com's charts prior to publication. Once the book went on sale, the author sent out even more postcards. HC placed national advertising in major newspapers, set up a 10-city tour and launched the book on June 11 with a 70,000-copy first printing. After a week on sale, total copies in print increased to 140,000; currently, there are 205,000 copies in print after seven trips to press.

CINDERFELLA CINDERELLA
Bill Murray has so far enjoyed a one-month run on PW's nonfiction bestseller list with his memoir, Cinderella Story: My Life in Golf, co-written with George Peper (editor-in-chief of Golf magazine). Murray and golf became synonymous with the success of his movie Caddyshack (the video was re-released in April, a month before the Doubleday book was published). Murray's love of golf began back when he was 10 and worked as a caddy on the local Chicago public links; now he is big on the celebrity pro-am golf circuit. Sales for the book should continue to stay strong, as his earlier Oprah appearance is scheduled to re-air on July 29. Total in print after two trips to press is 160,000 copies.

BELOW THE TOP 15
Even with two new hardcover novels on the charts, there are several more percolating right below the top 15: Juneteenth by Ralph Ellison, edited by John F. Callahan (Random House); Cheaters by Eric Jerome Dickey (Dutton); The Saving Graces by Patricia Gaffney (HarperCollins); Pearl Cove by Elizabeth Lowell (Avon); and Falcon at the Portal: An Amelia Peabody Mystery by Elizabeth Peters (Avon Twilight).