FATTENING WALLETS TOPS SLIMMING THIGHS: A QUARTER OF AMAZON.COM’S TOP 25 SELLERS ARE FINANCIAL BOOKS, AS MARKET DEMANDS MORE STOCK, BOND, LIFE ADVICE

When McGraw-Hill reissued the investment bible “Security Analysis” two years ago, it sold a very respectable 32,000 copies. Not bad for a 65-year-old, 699-page tome that’s not even available on audiocassette.

But imagine if Benjamin Graham and David Dodd had named their opus something catchy — like, say, “Seven Steps to Security Analysis” or “Security Analysis Shall Set You Free.” And shaved off, oh, 500 pesky pages by replacing those dry chapters on “Technical Aspects of Convertible Issues” with a few snappy tips on “Connecting with Your Inner Investor.”

Now, picture Mr. Graham — perhaps as a perky blond — plugging the book on CNBC, CNN and Bloomberg TV. Why, there he is again, granting chatty interviews with Forbes and Business Week and writing essays for Smart Money magazine. He’s warning consumers away from Christmas credit card excesses on ABC’s Good Morning America. Talking the Street talk on www.investmentgod.com. Hawking autographed copies on QVC. Then, the jackpot: Oprah!

Well, then, Mr. Graham and Mr. Dodd might have sold more like 2 million books over the same period. Like Suze Orman’s “The Nine Steps to Financial Freedom” did.

Ms. Orman is only the most omnipresent example of the new face of financial publishing. (Her rather painfully named follow-up, “The Courage to be Rich,” is just out and already on bestseller lists.) Personal finance and investing books, once relegated to dusty back shelves, have ridden the 1990s bull market to the mainstream.

Ten out of online bookseller Amazon.com’s 25 nonfiction hard-cover bestsellers last week were business books — six of those about personal finance or investing — with “The Motley Fool’s Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: The Foolish Guide to Picking Stocks” (No. 23) edging out “Eat Right for Your Type: The Individualized Diet Solution to Staying Healthy, Living Longer & Achieving Your Ideal Weight” (No. 25).

At least for the moment, making money has replaced losing weight — though not presidential sex (“Monica’s Story” is No. 1) — as the American obsession.

“Personal finance and investing is probably one of the fastest growing segments at Amazon,” says the online bookseller’s business editor, Harry Edwards, who recently responded to heavy customer demand by breaking out, for the first time, a separate personal finance and investing list from the general business list.

“There’s this hunger, a real paradigm shift at how people look at and manage their wealth — they want to do it themselves,” he says.

Of course many personal finance books still go right to the back of the store, with hopes of selling a modest 20,000 or so copies. And many more aspiring stock-picking guides don’t even make it out of the gate, snubbed by agents and publishers in this saturated market.

So what sells? Two things, say industry types: something truly new — like, for example, McGraw-Hill’s chart-busting “The Electronic Day Trader” — and, much more predictably, personality. The author as brand. Think Martha Stewart meets Peter Lynch.

“For a book in this niche to be successful it isn’t just substance, it’s who’s writing it — they have to have a profile that goes beyond the book, a talk show or a column, something like that,” says New York literary agent Alice Martell, who turns down several “perfectly fine” personal finance pitches for every one she agrees to peddle to publishers.

With so many financial radio and television outlets out there demanding not just good advice but good entertainment, financial books are just held to a different standard. “It isn’t enough to be this brilliant professor or investor anymore,” sighs Ms. Martell.

Sad, but true, agrees HarperBusiness executive editor Dave Conti. Although substance still comes first, he insists, it doesn’t come at all these days without promotion.

“There’s just too much noise out there,” he says. “We have a favorite word here at Harper: platform. Who he or she is, how he or she can promote the book.”

That, Mr. Conti concedes, can leave some “credible ideas” from nonentities out in the cold — and make hot properties of anything bearing the right brand.

the next motley fools

One example: an upcoming Harper release tentatively titled “The Sage Guide to Mutual Funds,” by Alan and Stephen Cohn, the brothers who run the popular America Online mutual fund site. “They’re sort of the Motley Fools of the mutual fund world,” Mr. Conti says.

Of course, he isn’t the only one looking for the next Motley Fools or Suze Orman.

Unknown authors (who generally pocket around $15,000 for a book expected to sell 20,000 copies), publishers (who consider something in the neighborhood of 40,000 a modest hit) and agents (who get 10% to 20% of any advance payment) are constantly scrambling for the right combination of good ideas, gimmicks and personality that make for a breakout personal finance or investing book.

The race has produced a slew of the good, the bad and the silly. Among the more recent offbeat entries that made it — at least to Amazon.com’s personal finance and investing popular titles list: “Business Buy the Bible” (Lighthouse Publishing), “Smart Women Finish Rich: Seven Steps to Achieving Financial Security and Funding Your Dreams “(Broadway Books), “The Financial Peace Planner” (Penguin USA) and, in the if-all-else-fails category, “Hide Your Assets and Disappear: A Step-by-Step Guide to Vanishing Without a Trace” (Regan Books).

Lawyer and financial adviser Stephen M. Pollan (with co-writer Mark Levine) is one of the few to hit a bona fide home run, with his 1997 “Die Broke,” a savvy combination of a clever title, a good gimmick — basically: screw the kids; spend it while you can — and a lot of common sense financial advice.

Mr. Pollan’s publisher, HarperBusiness, had high hopes and did a first printing of 40,000. It didn’t hurt that Mr. Pollan was already a minor financial media player and a willing and able self-promoter, an avuncular smart-ass New Yorker who had appeared regularly on CNBC and other places.

But that was before Mr. Pollan caught Oprah Winfrey’s eye. Between his first appearance on her show, just as the book was released in October, and a rebroadcast three months later, the book went back to press nine times and sold 110,000 copies.

Scads of promotional opportunities followed both broadcasts, with Mr. Pollan popping up on “Good Morning America,” CNN and even “The 700 Club.” More printings followed, with more than 200,000 books sold before it went to paperback.

“Was I surprised?,” asks Mr. Pollan. “You bet. I knew I was good. But I wasn’t a star until Oprah. It’s kind of funny how that works.”

Mr. Pollan laughed all the way to his next book, 1998’s “Live Rich,” which, after serialization in Worth magazine and chatting up on ABC’s “The View” and other morning television shows, quickly followed its predecessor to the bestseller list.

The best thing about being a famous personal finance writer, according to the self-plugging Mr. Pollan: “Now I don’t have to ‘Die Broke’ if I don’t want to.”

Still, he’s already hard at work on the third entry in what’s now the Pollan brand, tentatively titled “Turning No into Yes.”

He’s right to strike while the iron is hot. “This is not a market that is going to wait for publishers or authors who are slow,” says Philip Ruppel, vice president and group publisher for business and general reference titles at McGraw-Hill.

Last May, when Mr. Ruppel first published “The Electronic Day Trader,” by Mark Friedfertig and George West, he ordered just 10,000 books. The timing coincided with an explosion in online trading, and sales spiked immediately.

Mr. Ruppel realized he had hit on something new that the public wanted. By August, he had developed another day trading concept and hired David S. Nassar, a trader and Denver business personality, to write it.

Mr. Nassar’s “How to Get Started in Electronic Day Trading: Everything You Need To Know to Play Wall Street’s Hottest Game” was published in November. It’s now No. 1 on Amazon.com’s personal finance and investing list. “The Electronic Day Trader,” which has sold more than 110,000 copies, is No. 2.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” marvels Mr. Ruppel.

Mr. Nassar and the Friedfertig-West duo are rushing out follow-up day trading books for McGraw-Hill.

“I tried to talk them into a novel,” jokes Mr. Nassar, “but they wouldn’t go for it.”