by Paul Grondahl, Staff Writer

University at Albany marketing professor William D. Danko never expected his academic book, "The Millionaire Next Door" (Longstreet Press, $22), to become the Cinderella story of the young 1997 publishing season.

The book cracked both the New York Times non-fiction hardcover best-seller list (No. 14) and the Times business books best-seller list (No. 6) this week. The book climbs to No. 4 on the non-fiction list on Feb. 2.

"The Millionaire Next Door," brought out two months ago, is heading into its fifth printing... and an auction has begun among competing publishers for paperback rights...

All that for a scholarly work by two unknown academics who had been working with a small southern publisher and a minimal promotion budget.

"I figured we had a better shot of getting hit by a meteor than making the best-seller list," Danko said.

But the success of the book co-authored by Danko, 44, and Thomas J. Stanley, 52--Danko's marketing professor at UAlbany in the 1970s and now a researcher and consultant in Atlanta--underscores a country obsessed with wealth.

Their book's subtitle, "The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy," describes its primary theme: Millionaires are made, not born.

The vast majority of America's 3.5 million millionaires did not inherit wealth or command a lucrative salary, but, instead, amassed a personal fortune through many years of frugality and financial discipline--buying modest houses, driving old cars, shopping at discount stores.

The authors report on their extensive surveying of millionaires and offer advice on the behavioral traits that can make the reader likewise a millionaire or, in the authors' phrase, a Prodigious Accumulator of Wealth (PAW).

"The publishing industry gets excited when something like this happens, when a book that has something to say makes it without a mega-publisher and a million-dollar marketing campaign," said Suzanne De Galan, editor of Longstreet Press of Marietta, GA, a small house that publishes a mix of cookbooks, children's books and fiction.

The odds of "The Millionaire Next Door" hitting the best-seller list were long, indeed. According to Books in Print, the authoritative publishing index, 140,000 books were published in 1996, bringing the total of book titles currently in print to 1.3 million.

The number of books published annually has been climbing rapidly since 1947, the first year Books in Print began collecting data, when just 85,000 titles and 357 publishers existed in the country. Now, 50 years later, with lower production costs due to desktop technology, there are more than 49,000 publishing houses nationwide.

"The only way we broke onto the Times best-seller list along with celebrities Walter Cronkite, Jimmy Carter, Scott Adams, Erma Bombeck and Tim Allen was because we touched a nerve," Danko said.

The book's success was launched by media interest, both domestic and international. Aside from feature articles by The Associated Press and numerous U.S. newspapers, including the Times Union, the authors were interviewed on scores of radio call-in shows.

Across the Atlantic, the BBC World Service, an Australian radio station, The Independent of London and The Sunday Mail of Scotland reported on the book. One of the biggest pushes came from a plug by Rush Limbaugh on his show, with an accompanying piece in the radio commentator's mouthpiece, The Limbaugh Letter, which has 500,000 subscribers.

"The book has taken on a life of its own," Danko said. He has been besieged with e-mail messages from an eclectic mix of millionaires offering to be interviewed, from firefighters to veterinarians.

At a book signing at The Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza in Guilderland NY last month, a woman in her 70s stopped to chat with Danko. Although she looked ordinary and was a retired office clerk without a college degree, she had a net worth of $3 million following four decades of small, but steady investment in the stock market. "She told me her lawyer wanted her to move into a bigger house for tax purposes, but she said she didn't want to call attention to herself or leave her good friends," Danko said. "She sums up the point of our whole book."

It goes without saying the book's runaway success was unexpected. The first printing was 15,000 copies and the authors divided a modest advance...

"A number of houses are bidding aggressively for the paperback rights, including Ballantine," De Galan said. "The word is definitely out on this book and the price is in the high six figures now and climbing."

De Galan said Longstreet Press has just pumped $100,000 into promotion for the book. "We think this is just the beginning, and we're committed to keep sales moving," De Galan said. "We're all thrilled by the book's potential."

So are the authors. Danko, who lives in Niskayuna NY with his wife and three children, practices a PAW's thrifty ways, including driving a 1986 Volvo with 120,000 miles on it. What will he do with the book's windfall?

"Invest it, of course," Danko said. "I've got two kids in college now and will be paying for 12 years of tuition at a minimum. I need all the savings I can get."