World’s Highest-Paid Author
According to Los Angeles News ; Even in the times of the plummeting hardcover sales and e-book piracy, the World’s best literary minds are getting their cut and more. According to the latest list of World’s highest paid authors by Forbes, The top ten authors together earn around 270 million dollars in the 12 months leading up to June 2010.The top three authors contributed more than half of revenue.
Leading the pack is American James Patterson, with close to 70 million dollars in earnings over the last year. The American known who already has 51 New York Times Bestsellers to his credit, signed a 17 book deal in September 2009 which is estimated to increase his worth by 100 million dollars at least.
His earnings are from multiple ventures spanning television, comic book and video game deals. His book I Alex cross, has sold more than 160,000 copies in digital format. Ironically, he still doesn’t use a computer for writing his novels.
The creator of the Twilight Saga, Stephenie Meyer follows Patterson on the list. She did not release any new titles from the saga last year but still her earning are close to 40 million dollars. The movies made on twilight have contributed close to 7 million in this. And don’t forget that Eclipse, which was released in June, raked in $175 million in its first week itself.
This was the most successful first week of any movie of 2010, Watch out Patterson here she comes. On third spot is the legendary horror writer, Stephen King, who has been in this field for more than 40 years now and with much success.
His earnings for the last year summed up to be 34 million dollars. Next to him we have the romance novelist Danielle Steel, who is just two million shy of King’s earnings with a $32 million paycheck last year.
In a move which will boost her earnings, Steel recently announced that all of her 71 books will be made available in digital format on Amazon.com and the Sony eBook store. British writer Ken Follett completes the top 5 with $20 million in total revenues.
His book Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth came in at No. 2 on the Times of London readers’ list of greatest novels of last sixty years behind Harper Lee’s ‘To kill a mocking bird’.
