Writer profile: Janet Evanovich
Naples author transforms from romance to mystery
BY PRUDY TAYLOR BOARD Special To Florida Weekly
Janet Evanovich is one of this country's most successful authors. She's a regular on the New York Times Best Seller List. She's won the Crime Writer Association's John Creasey Memorial, Last laugh, and Silver Dagger Awards, the Left Coast Crime's Lefty Award and she's a two-time winner of the Quill Award for Mystery, Suspense, and Thrillers. When, after 12 romance novels she "ran out of sexual positions," she transitioned from writing romances to mysteries without losing her readers - no easy feat.

And she's prolific. Published novels, at last count, include at least 16 murder mysteries, 12-plus romances, a how-to (How I Write, St. Martin's Press) in addition to seven co-authored books with Charlotte Hughes and Leanne Banks. In 1994, she sold the film rights to one of her novels, "One for the Money" (Scribner), the first in her Stephanie Plum series,

to Columbia TriStar Pictures for nearly a million dollars.

It's obvious that Evanovich is a talented writer and that she consistently delivers entertaining, well written books. But there are many other prolific, talented writers who have not achieved her status. So why is this woman a household name? When asked, Evanovich is not offended by the question and is very open. "I wasn't an overnight success," she says, adding that it took 10 years to sell her first novel. No question that tenacity figured into her success and even today, she keeps an impressive schedule. Interviewed by phone from her home in Naples, she described a typical day.

"I get up at 5 a.m., feed my cats and my parrot, I make my coffee and I'm at work by 5:30 and I write until 12 or one o'clock." Describing herself as a slow writer, her goal is to produce five pages a day. Afternoons, Evanovich follows her writing stint with exercise and talks with Alex, her daughter, a film and photography school grad, about the Web site Alex created and maintains for her (www.evanovich.com). Then, depending on what's happening with her books, she confers with her editors or publicist. (If she's on deadline or running late, she works in the evenings until 9 p.m., but if not, she and her husband, Pete, have a date night and go out to dinner at one of the fine restaurants in Naples.)

COURTESY PHOTO Janet Evanovich

Another element of her success is that she treats it like a business. She has steadily and deliberately grown her readership which translates into consistent growth in book sales. It's also a family business and she credits her family with being very supportive. Her son, Peter, a Dartmouth grad, deals with the financial matters, the contracts, the investments, the taxes. In addition to touring with her, Alex handles the Web site, the mail, the store, the online advertising and the newsletter which goes to nearly 200,000 fans.

But neither her tenacity, her writing talent, nor her family support totally accounts for her outstanding success. Much of it lies with the unflagging loyalty of her readers, loyalty she's earned. It's payback for the respect and affection she demonstrates toward them. "I write for my readers," she says. And she sincerely believes that "People who shop at Costco deserve something wonderful to read at the end of the day." That warm, caring, down-to-earth attitude must surely make the difference.

Her fans, this writer among them, have a treat in store. Plum Lucky, the most recent in the Stephanie Plum series, was released Jan. 8.