Publishers Lunch - top earning authors

The Dayton Literary Peace Prize's lifetime achievement award has gone to Wendell Berry. He tells the AP: "As a poet and fiction writer, my goal was to write a good poem and tell a good story. That's complex enough.... I have as a storyteller, and somewhat as a poet, been stuck with the story of the decline of rural life in all its aspects during my lifetime. And so I've told that story, and I suppose it has a potential instructiveness."

Forbes has published their annual guesses at the top earning-authors, for the 12 months ending June 2013. An interesting side-note; of the 16 authors covered, at least six do not use traditional literary agents (at least for their principal rights). Their list:

E.L. James: $95 million
James Patterson: $91 million
Suzanne Collins: $55 million
Bill O'Reilly: $28 million
Danielle Steel: $26 million
Jeff Kinney: $24 million
Janet Evanovich: $24 million
Nora Roberts: $23 million
Dan Brown: $22 million
Stephen King: $20 million
Dean Koontz: $20 million
John Grisham: $18 million
David Baldacci: $15 million
Rick Riordan: $14 million
J.K. Rowling: $13 million
George R.R. Martin: $12 million