NOT EVERYBODY GOT FLOWERS OR CANDY
Three Laura Corn books -- 101 Nights of Grrreat Sex, 101 Nights of Grrreat Romance and 52 Invitations to Grrreat Sex -- make a first appearance on the trade paper charts this week. This week's tallies included books bought as Valentine's Day gifts, perhaps indicating some steamy expectations. Corn began to self-publish her books via Park Avenue Publishers after being turned down by just about every New York publisher for her first endeavor, 237 Intimate Questions Every Woman Should Ask a Man (which will be revised and repackaged for release later this year). While she sold more than 100,000 copies of that book from her car, she later partnered with LPC Group for her other books. An indefatigable self-promoter (check out her Web site, www.grrreatsex.com), Corn has been on more than 1000 radio shows promoting her books and has appeared on The View, Roseanne, and Hard Copy. In January she did a 22-city radio tour and also some in-store events. 101 Nights of Grrreat Sex was published in September 1995; it sold about 24,000 copies that first year. That's about how many it sold in the first six weeks of 1999, and total sales are now about 450,000. 101 Nights of Grrreat Romance was published at the end of 1996 and retail sales total nearly 205,000 copies. 52 Invitations, published January 15, so far has sold more than 83,000 copies.

YA-YA BEGINS TWO, TOO
Not every bestseller enjoys a tenure of a year or more on the bestseller charts, but Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood begins its second year ensconced on PW's trade paper list. Who would have thought that a HarperPerennial 1997 first printing of about 13,500 copies would grow, two years later, to more than 2,113,000 after 44 trips to press? Or that its prequel, Little Altars Everywhere, would have more than 803,018 copies in press? As this column noted about a year ago, the books' national bestsellerdom has been helped by the grass-roots formation of Ya-Ya groups nationwide, which have turned this title into a handselling phenomenon. Last year at this time, PW noted that the Ya-Ya titles had more than 266,000 copies in print after 21 trips to press and that Little Altars Everywhere had 86,500 copies in print after 17 printings. The original Ya-Ya club was started in Knoxville, Tenn., by Flossie McNabb, an employee of Davis-Kidd Bookstore. Look for a feature on author Rebecca Wells in the March issue of More magazine. She has already been profiled in People, Newsweek, USA Today and was recently featured on CBS Sunday Morning. One favored Ya-Ya Club activity is guessing who will be cast in the movie; rights have been sold to Warner Brothers and Bette Midler's All-Girl Productions. Mentioned frequently are Jessica Lange, Holly Hunter, Meryl Streep, Dixie Carter, Blythe Danner and Mary Louise Parker.

KUDOS FOR TYNDALE
While Tyndale's Left Behind apocalyptic fiction titles have been regulars on PW's monthly religion bestseller charts, it's still quite a feat when these books cross over to a general and more secular bestseller list. Book five, Apollyon, d s just that, with more than 350,000 copies shipped in a two-day laydown. Tyndale reports that to date it has sold more than 4.5 million copies (both books and audios) of Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins's first four books, Left Behind, Tribulation Force, Nicolae and Soul Harvest, as well as Left Behind: The Kids, a four-book fiction series for children published last July. This past September, the first three adult books headed up PW's religion paperback chart, while #4 led off the hardcover list. The authors use the Book of Revelation as background for the series, which is set in modern times. and take the biblical position, according to Tyndale, "that events are shaping up for Jesus Christ to return at any time, and that His followers should get their lives in order and communicate His message of redemption to those that do not know him." Book #6, which has the working title Assassins, is scheduled for August 1999.