SALES ACTION
Yet another example of an effective movie tie-in, Jonathan Harr's A Civil Action is enjoying favorable film reviews and strong book sales. The first Vintage edition of the book was published September 1996; it spent almost a year and a half on the trade paper bestseller charts. The movie tie-in edition, with John Travolta on the cover, was published October 1998 with a 500,000 first printing. There are 1.5 million paperback copies. The author has been involved with the movie's national publicity campaign and Vintage is holding screenings for booksellers across the country.

RANDOM OPPORTUNITIES
New hardcover titles by Dean Koontz and Jonathan Kellerman hit the national charts this week, and while once this would have been a bestselling race between BDD and RH, under consolidation their common corporate owner is enjoying the fruits. For Koontz, it's Seize the Night, which continues the story of Christopher Snow and his friends that began in Fear Nothing; that book made it to the top of the charts in mass market. Seize lands at #4, ahead of Kellerman's latest, Billy Straight, which makes it onto the charts in the #7 slot for its first week on sale. His Survival of the Fittest, a Bantam mass market, begins its third month on the paperback charts and has 1,300,000 copies in print after three trips to press.

Bantam's first printing for Koontz's book is 387,000 copies and the author is doing radio, TV and print advertising. Kellerman's newest enjoys a 310,000-copy first printing. Kellerman is on tour most of January.

IT'S BOSCH, MY GOSH
Michael Connelly's latest Hieronymus Bosch mystery, Angels Flight, is right on the mark, climbing bestseller charts at the chains and at independent bookstores nationwide. Little, Brown launched the book with a 175,000-copy first printing and after just one week in the stores, it has already gone back to press for 20,000 more. To get the buzz going, the publisher sent out "tons of reading copies" to stores during the fall. The first chapter of Angels Flight was included at the end of Warner's paperback of Blood Work, published in October. Two weeks of TV and radio advertising begin January 11 and the author is on tour for the rest of this month.

FACING OPRAH
Back in November 1997, Little, Brown's Making Faces by Kevyn Aucoin landed on the top of the charts. The make-up artist's client roster includes such well known -- not to mention beautiful -- women as Cindy Crawford, Elizabeth Hurley, Whitney Houston, Sharon Stone, Julia Roberts, Janet Jackson, Demi Moore, etc., etc. But the big catalyst for the book's sales was Oprah. He did a full hour on her show, making up TV's talk show queen as Diana Ross. Turns out the show was one of Oprah's favorites and she re-aired it New Year's Eve. Little, Brown had a head's up and managed to meet anticipated demand with an additional 90,000-copy printing. Within a week, it went back on the list and the publisher reports sales of 340,000 over six printings totaling 400,000.

HOLIDAY FAVORS EMERIL
It was a good fall and holiday season for Emeril's TV Dinners by Emeril LaGasse, who has his own show Emeril Live on the Food Network. The book was the holiday season's favorite cookbook and has about 368,000 copies in print. The success for that book has also gotten his backlist percolating. According to publisher Morrow, the new book and LaGasse's three backlist titles -- Emeril's Creole Christmas, (1997); Louisiana Real &Rustic, (1996); and Emeril's New New Orleans Cooking (1993) -- have a combined total of more than one million copies in print.

MORE FOR FOODIES
Vintage is enjoying sales success with The Man Who Ate Everything and other Gastronomic Feats, Disputes and Pleasurable Pursuits by Vogue food critic Jeffrey Steingarten. It has been a mainstay on the Independent Bestseller List since its November pub date and is already in its fifth printing, for a total of 54,000 copies.