Steve Harvey: Attention Is Rewarding, Scary

Steve Harvey is a busy man these days. He has his popular four-hour morning radio show, which has an audience of 7 million. He has a new TV show. He has a new line of men's clothing. He hosts Family Feud. He's on the lecture circuit. And he has a new profile in Wednesday's USA Today.

And then there are the books.

Craig Wilson at usatoday.com writes Harvey's latest, Straight Talk, No Chaser: How to Find, Keep, and Understand a Man (Amistad, $24.99), is out this week, and he admits that he isn't prepared for this second journey down literary lane. "It makes me nervous. Trying to top the first one just about froze me from writing the second."

Understandable. His 2009 mega best seller, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man (Amistad, $23.99), is still so hot that there's no paperback edition. After 50 printings, there are more than 2 million copies in print.
On his book tour, thousands of women — 2,700 in Augusta, Ga. — stood in line for hours just to say hello and have their books signed. And yes, there were a few propositions along the way.

The idea for Harvey's first book, a primer for women on how to better understand men, came about when a suitor came calling for one of his daughters. He asked the young man a simple question: "What's your plan?" The young man didn't have one. (He also never returned.)

"So I asked my daughter why she didn't ask him that question."

His daughter then admitted she never thought of asking such a question and told him he should write a relationship book. So he did.

That first book is now being followed by a more no-nonsense one, touching on many of the things women told him after they read his best seller.

But at 53, dressed in a crisp blue blazer and white slacks, Harvey cuts the figure of a much younger man. His mustache is tightly trimmed, his bald head shiny. (He shaves it every day with a Norelco electric razor.)

"Steve is incredibly perceptive about people in general and men in particular, which is apparent listening to his comedy and radio shows," says Dawn Davis, editor and head of Amistad, Harvey's publisher. "He always zeros in on what people are thinking, and that's not always compatible with what they say."



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