Cameron Tuttle builds a 'bad girl' empire

"Party Life" is Tuttle's third guide for female fun. It offers yet another humorous glimpse into the wild world of sass, brass and wicked ways.

The book is a hodgepodge of tip-sheets, flow charts and doodles designed to instruct even the most timid woman in how to have a good time, whether it's driving topless or table dancing. It offers notes on such devilish games as spin the bottle or silly fun, like handing out party favors at office meetings.

It also has advice: "You know it's time to throw a party when you ask the mailman if he'd like to come in for a drink"; and "You know it's time to leave a party when you're being escorted out in handcuffs."

In Tuttle's world, there is no self-help -- just helping yourself. And her three "Bad Girls Guides" offer practical, fun advice for surviving life. But between the pink, glittery covers, Tuttle leaves little room for morning-after shame.

"Little did I know I was tapping into this real zeitgeist," says Tuttle, holding a flute of champagne and chatting at a small table near the bar. "This whole good girl-bad girl conflict is not just my own neurosis, but it's actually a very universal thing for women. It really blows my mind."

In the summer of 1996, after renting a video of "Thelma and Louise" for the umpteenth time, Tuttle and a friend trekked 120,000 miles across the country and back -- stopping in nearly every state along the way.

In 1999, she wrote "The Bad Girl's Guide to the Open Road." The book, which has sold 223,000 copies, touted itself as the "read-it-before you leave, toss-it-in-the-glove-compartment, use-it-if-you-run-out-of-toilet-paper handbook."

It offered every suggestion imaginable for surviving road trips, from how to talk your way out of a speeding ticket without crying to urinating outside without soiling your shoes. It also served more practical advice such as how to fix a muffler or cool an overheating engine.

Her follow-up, "The Bad Girl's Guide to Getting What You Want," sold 330,000 copies, outpacing the original, and allowed Tuttle to quit her day job running her own copywriting business, which focused on advertising and Web content.

Tuttle also wrote "The Paranoid's Pocket Guide," which was released by Chronicle Books in 1997.

"Party Life" came out in August and seems destined for the same success: It sold 93,000 copies in its first four months of release.

"On one level, I'm absolutely delighted and surprised with the success of these books," Tuttle says. "On another level, there's a part of me that intuitively sensed there was something here and that there would be a lot of women who would respond to an open invitation to unleash their inner wild."

But some readers question whether the books are advocating that women objectify themselves instead of using their intelligence.

"You wonder, does it really challenge the status quo, or does it reinforce it?" said Amanda Davidson of Modern Times Bookstore in San Francisco. "At the same time it sells really well so I think that kind of speaks for itself."

However, Tuttle, a self-styled bad girl, says being a bad girl isn't just about being sexy, it's about empowering yourself, going after what you want and having a sense of humor.

"You know there are so many books out there that tell women what to do, or how to improve their lives, and they're so serious," Tuttle says. "Having a healthy sex life is going to be part of a healthy bad girl existence, but it's not about dressing like a slut and sleeping around. That's pretty unimaginative as far as I'm concerned."

The guides, which cost about $15, are mostly geared toward single women in their 20s and 30s. But Tuttle says she hopes women of every age, sexual orientation and marital status can gain something from them.

The author grew up in the Bay Area town of Lafayette, Calif., where her father, Norman Tuttle, was a lawyer and at one point mayor. Her mother, Barbara Tuttle, was a stay-at-home mom who died when Tuttle was in her teens. Soon after, Tuttle went to Brown University in Providence, R.I., where she got a bachelor's degree in English poetry.

Tuttle says much of her inspiration for writing the bad girl's guides can be traced to her mother, who she says never felt fulfilled by just being a mother and wife. By the time she died of breast cancer at 40, Barbara Tuttle had done none of the things she had yearned to do, such as moving away from the suburbs, making her own money or really speaking her mind.

"She struggled with rejecting the classic mainstream values that she had been raised to embrace while searching for new values that meant something to her," Tuttle says.

Tuttle says she wanted to write something that would inspire women not to fall into the good girl trap her mother did.

"I think the most influential event in my life was my mom's death," Tuttle says. "I honestly think that's where I first began to develop some of my opinions about what price you pay by being a good girl. I really saw my mom battling with that good girl-bad girl thing."

Tuttle, now in her late 30s, seems a little more tame than the woman who jumped behind the wheel in 1996. Dressed in a ribbed turtleneck and slacks, she is the very picture of a businesswoman, which her books have led her to become.

Her books, all published by Chronicle, have grossed $8.3 million. She won't disclose how much she's worth, but will say she lives very comfortably even by Bay Area standards.

And now she has a company to run. Bad Girl Swirl, Inc., which she jokingly calls her "Bad Girl Empire," owns the copyrights to the Bad Girl name and allows her to put it on a wide range of products.

So these days there are T-shirt designs to approve -- the calendar, address book, journal and "disorganizer" are already on shelves -- and she's exploring the idea of turning the guides into a television show. She would like to see the concept evolve into a "smart, funny, unglamorous, egalitarian 'Sex and the City."'

In the meantime, Tuttle, happily single, says she is just enjoying her success.

"It's cool to be able to turn your own neurosis into a cottage industry," she says.<