Top Ten Highest Paid Authors: What Do They Have in Common?

In August 2010, Forbes.com listed the top ten highest paid authors, a group of bestsellers who brought in a combined $270 million over a period of twelve months, ending June 1, 2010.

In order of greatest amount of earnings, they are:

1. James Patterson ($70 million)

2. Stephenie Meyer ($40 million)

3. Stephen King ($34 million)

4. Danielle Steel ($32 million)

5. Ken Follett ($20 million)

6. Dean Koontz ($18 million)

7. Janet Evanovich ($16 million)

8. John Grisham ($15 million)

9. Nicholas Sparks ($14 million)

10. JK Rowling ($10 million)

These authors are all bestselling, well-known writers in their genres, but what do they have in common that makes each of them one of the top ten highest paid authors?

Popular series or recurring niche

Every single author on this list has had a popular, bestselling series of novels featuring recurring characters or themes. Many are authors of series with the same characters, like Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, or Patterson's Women's Murder Club series. Some, like Meyer and Rowling, are top earners specifically from a series of novels with one overarching plotline. Others, like Grisham or Sparks, are known for writing novels in the same genre niche-Grisham for legal thrillers, Sparks for romance. King, author of many bestselling horror novels, also wrote a popular fantasy series, The Dark Tower. Ken Follett may have reached new levels of popularity with Pillars of the Earth, but before that he had several bestselling thrillers. The point is, once these authors strike gold, they keep mining it.

Diversification

The top ten highest paid authors are not just making money from book sales. Bestselling authors have business deals in other media like merchandise, comics, gaming, and most notably, film and television rights. Follett's Pillars of the Earth was made into a 2010 TV miniseries. Koontz's latest novel The Husband, according to Forbes, was optioned to both Focus Features and Random House Films. King's latest novel Under the Dome was optioned by DreamWorks TV.

Optioning-when authors sell the choice, but not the obligation, to use their work for screenplays- is a big moneymaker for authors. Optioning does not mean selling the rights to a work, it means that the author has given the purchaser the option of buying the rights to the work at some point in the future. I once heard author Joe Coomer admit that most of his earnings did not come from book sales but from optioning his novels for screenplays. He was excited to say that Oprah had once optioned the rights for one of his novels. The movie was never made, but Coomer had still made a hefty income from the option.

Some sources of income have little to do with the author's work. Forbes reports that Steel's income included a $1 million settlement from an ex-assistant who was convicted of embezzling $760,000 from the author.

Longevity

Criticize the literary merit of some of these authors if you will, but most have continuously entertained their audience for decades. Half of the top ten highest paid authors (Steel, King, Patterson, Follett, Koontz) have been publishing novels since the 1970s. Three others (Evanovich, Grisham, Sparks) have been publishing regularly since the early 1990s. With thirty to forty years of experience behind each of them, its no wonder they are the top earners in their chosen occupation.

Genre-crossing

Most of the top ten highest paid authors have taken advantage of trends in publishing. The growing popularity of young-adult literature (thanks to #10, J.K. Rowling), prompted some of these authors, like Patterson and Koontz, to write young-adult novels. Meyer, who rose to popularity in young-adult fiction, also wrote a romance novel marketed for adults, The Host, justthree monthsbefore the last installment of the Twilight series was released. Some, like Evanovich and King have ventured into the graphic novel genre. Grisham, famous for his legal thrillers, has written five literary novels, a non-fiction book, and just published his first offering to the tween market, Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer.

Prolific writing habits

Not content to release one book a year, many of the top ten highest paid authors release several books a year. Patterson's website boasts that he has written 51 New York Times Bestsellers. (To be fair, Patterson co-writes with other authors on many of his projects.) According to Forbes, Danielle Steel has an inventory of seventy-one novels so far, and King not only just released his 51^st novel Under the Dome, but also in 2010 had a story published in the New Yorker, a book review of a Raymond Carver biography, an article in horror magazine Fangoria, and a poem in Playboy.

Acceptance of new technology

In 2000, long before ebooks were common, King released his novella Riding the Bullet as the world's first ebook. According to Amazon.com, Patterson and Meyer have each sold over half a million Kindle ebooks. Meyer released a novella in the summer of 2010, The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, available first exclusively as an ebook. According to Forbes, Steel just announced all of her novels will be digitally released on Amazon.com and the Sony ebook store. With new forms of technology, a whole new market emerges, and the potential for new audiences, perhaps a whole new generation of readers, presents itself.

Not surprisingly, the top ten highest paid authors are dedicated professionals, masters of their craft, who found a niche and filled it. Their reward is financial success and, perhaps more importantly, millions of dedicated fans who buy their books.

Resources:

Smillie, Dirk. "The Highest Paid Authors" Forbes.com

http://www.forbes.com/2010/08/19/patterson-meyer-king-business-media-highest-paid-authors.html

Mayfield, Kendra. "E-Books King: Stephen the First" Wired.com

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2000/03/34940