Janet Evanovich: Author as Businesswoman

From failed author to media magnate: Janet Evanovich is using a creative approach and good old-fashioned common sense to market her bestselling books.
While her success speaks to her tenacity and 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, Ms. 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. [...]
Ms. 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, 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, a festival on June 25 is expected to attract several thousand fans. Barnes & Noble will be there selling books.
Her approach is refreshingly non-egotistical, don't you think? Evanovich doesn't seem to see the "working writer" as an artiste, but as a businesswoman.

From Rebecca Blood