Only three women have sold more than 10m copies of their most recent albums in North America, but what sets Shania Twain apart from Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette is that she managed it without touring. Now her relative unknown status outside the US is set to be reversed with, after three years of pleading, a worldwide tour and, in the UK, Mercury MD Howard Berman making her his biggest US launch since Hanson. Twain spent most of 1996 and 1997 without a manager.

During that time she sold 13m copies of her second album, The Woman In Me, and wrote 16 songs for the next, Come On Over, which is released here on March 9. She also appeared on a string of TV shows and set personal appearance records all across North America ­but chose not to perform a single live show where she stood to make a cent on the door. Since Twain took on new management in mid-1997 ­Jon Landau and Barbara Carr at JLM who look after just two other artists: Bruce Springsteen and Natalie Merchant ­things are looking even better. Come On Over has already sold more than 4m copies in the US since its November 4 release (it debuted at number two on the main Billboard album chart) and notched up consecutive number one singles on the country chart. And her 1998 US concert tour that has Europe, Australia and the Far East pencilled in for late autumn will cement that achievement.

As UK promoter Harvey Goldsmith put it after meeting Twain earlier this month, "She's not country, she's not pop, she's just a huge talent ­and that's what will make this tour a success everywhere." But what makes Twain stand out from other artists in the satin and denim-lined ghetto of country music is that, with JLM, she's now working on a second agenda they call "internationalisation". By this time next year, Twain plans to be a global star to compare with Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey or Celine Dion. Mercury divisions around the world have her on priority status for the first quarter because they can see the same potential that the artist and her management see: a singer and writer whose manner, looks and style reflect a mainstream future, not a country past.

So when Twain sings in French and Spanish on I Won't Leave You Lonely from the new album it fits the needs of the song, not those of the marketplace. Richard Beck of London-based LD Publicity, which has been hired to help translate her appeal across the Atlantic and to provide heavy input into the re-styling exercise, says, "Shania is it! More than any other country artist ever she's the one that will cross over." It's a gamble of course, although Twain's proven cross-format appeal in the US constitutes a tip-off, and her multi-platinum success in Australia another. But this isn't a management and label plot for world domination.

They are just catching up on what the Canadian-born, broadly-travelled singer and songwriter has wanted from the start. And reflecting Twain's own ideas about how to make it happen. Manager Carr says, "She's pretty hands-on. There isn't much in Twain's life that isn't under her control." During a break from shooting a set of "not-Nashville" pictures at London's Metro Daylight studios, Twain says, "I really do want a lot of people to enjoy my work."

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