Basic question:  how much promotion is too much.

Janet Evanovich may be the only member of her family writing but the rest of the clan is involved in what has become The Janet Evanovich Publishing Machine.  According to this article, Evanovich enlists the assistance of her daughter, son and husband to help with all aspects of her career.  Since she’s supposed to be writing in between all this promo work and there just isn’t time for that, she hired someone to help with the actual writing as well.  Seems as if it takes a village to make Evanovich a star:

And they have transformed Evanovich, 62, from a failing romance writer who once burned a box of rejection letters on her curb into a mini-industry whose success is beginning to emulate the sprawling domains of authorial heavyweights such as James Patterson.

Last year, she sold an estimated 1 million books in hardcover and 3 million more paperbacks, earning more than $3 million in royalties from the paperbacks and several million more in advances and royalties on the hardcovers. The empire now includes two continuing mystery series: one featuring the sharp-elbowed bounty hunter Stephanie Plum, published by St. Martin’s Press, whose latest installment, "Eleven on Top" went on sale Tuesday; and a second, published by HarperCollins, which began last fall with "Metro Girl."

While her success speaks to her tenacity and her devotion to family, it owes as much to marketing prowess. When fans, impatient for her next novel, began asking her to recommend other writers like her, Evanovich hired one instead. Thus began a separate line of paperback romance-thrillers with Charlotte Hughes as co-author and St. Martin’s as publisher. Four books in that series became best-sellers.

And, since the it’s all about the promotion writing, she goes that extra step:

Evanovich plots her first week of promotion to include book signings at big stores that report their sales to publications that publish best-seller lists. As in past years, the publication of the new Stephanie Plum novel will include a Stephanie Plum Daze festival in Trenton, N.J., the setting for the novels. Featuring live music, food, a character dress-up contest and historical-society tours of Trenton sites mentioned in the series, today’s festival is expected to attract several thousand fans. Barnes & Noble will be there selling books.

She does not simply plan an event and expect people to show up, however. Evanovich Inc. constantly reminds its audience of a coming book, using its Internet site and a snail-mail newsletter, television commercials and radio spots. Evanovich oversees the design of book covers and the production of advertisements; she recently fired the agency that was devising commercials for "Eleven on Top" and enlisted her family and publisher to come up with a new pitch.

I’m exhausted just reading all that.  And, funny enough, still haven’t read one damn thing by Evanovich….or Hughes….or by whatever other human is writing under the Evanovich umbrella.  Not sure I will either.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 29th, 2005 at 3:40 am and is filed under About Authors, About Publishing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.