Bestsellers

Behind the Bestsellers
Daisy Maryles -- 8/28/00

Oprah's 'Open'-ing | Sisters in Crime
Stalking the Charts | A Sleeper First Fiction


Oprah's 'Open'-ing

Though a new TV season always brings a lot of speculation, there's been one constant over the last three or so years: Oprah will choose favorite novels for her on-air book club, whereupon they will shoot to the top of the bestseller charts and remain for many weeks. She announced her first selection for the fall 2000 season on August 23; it's Elizabeth Berg's Open House, published by Random House in July. The discussion of the book will take place at the end of September. First printing, pre-Oprah, was 50,000 copies. In anticipation of the usual sales explosion, Random has gone back for a hefty 750,000-copy second printing. This is Berg's eighth novel, and while all have enjoyed very good reviews, being selected by Oprah will introduce her to a wider audience. Three publishers--Ballantine, Berkley and Avon--publish her earlier titles in mass market and all should see spikes in sales. In fact, as soon as Oprah made her announcement, Berg's latest jumped to #1 at Amazon and was still at that level about 24 hours later, when this column went to press. But even before Oprah, ABA's Book Sense list had Open House among its top-selling fiction titles.

Sisters in CrimeThe sibling team of Pamela and Mary O'Shaughnessy, who pen the bestselling Nina Reilly legal thrillers under the pseudonym Perri O'Shaughnessy, have some celebrating to do these days. Their sixth book, Move to Strike, published by Delacorte on August 15, is their first hardcover PW and New York Times bestseller. The thriller debuted on our chart last week and hit yesterday'sTimes hardcover fiction list. Move to Strike, with nearly 90,000 copies in print after two printings, follows the paperback Acts of Malice--the authors' biggest paperback bestseller to date, with nearly one million copies in print after five printings. The sisters are on a 12-city publicity tour, and when they return home--Mary to San Francisco and Pam to Hawaii--they'll continue their work on Nina Reilly thriller #7, which Delacorte plans to publish in summer 2001.


Stalking the Charts
Stalker, Faye Kellerman's 11th mystery featuring Rina Lazarus and Peter Decker (Ritual Bath was the first, in 1986), has gone higher (#4 on PW's list this week) than any of her previous books. Morrow tells us that after three trips to press, there are 160,000 copies in print. The marketing campaign included print ads in the Wall Street Journal, the L.A. Times, Redbook and Parade, plus two weeks of national radio ads. Pre-pub publicity was strong and the book was featured on many summer reading lists, including USA Today, the New York Post, the Orlando Sentinel, the San Diego Union Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press.


A Sleeper First FictionPercolating below the top 15 bestsellers is a first fiction, Julie and Romeo by Jeanne Ray, a 60-something nurse; her inspiration for a love story featuring older people came while she was at a supermarket and noticed all the glossy women's magazines at the checkout counter with screaming cover lines like "Sex at 20! Sex at 30! Sex at 40!" So why not "Sex at 60!," she thought. Novelist Ann Patchett is her daughter, so she had professional support and connections--Ann's agent Lisa Bankoff took on the book, and sold it to Harmony editor Shaye Areheart. The buzz was good enough to get the attention of Barbra Streisand's Barwood Films, which bought the movie rights. The publisher mailed out 3500 advance reader's copies with florist cards (the book's romance is between two rival florists) and also had a display contest for booksellers (first prize--what else?--fresh flowers for a year). Ray was chosen as a Barnes & Noble Discovery author, spoke at the annual ALA and, most importantly, garnered excellent reviews. The book went on the Book Sense list a few weeks after its May pub date and began to climb the regional and national lists. After several trips back to press, the book now boasts 70,000 copies in print.

With reporting by Dick Donahue.