Fastest-selling author in history is also the books world's top earner in the last year, with a tidy $95m
50 Shades, $95m ... EL James. Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA
After the dominance of fantasy and thrillers in recent years, the world's readers last year turned en masse to a different variety of fancy, sending erotica author EL James straight to the top of the highest-earning authors list. The Fifty Shades of Grey author earned $95m (£65m) in the past year, jetting her straight to number one in the highest-earning authors list, above the likes of James Patterson at number two ($91m), and The Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins in third place ($55m).
The list is compiled annually by Forbes magazine in the US, based on best estimates using sales data, published figures and information from industry sources. Between June 2012 and June 2013, its figures show James's supercharged besteseller sold faster than any other author in history – more than 70m books in the first eight months on sale in the US.
JK Rowling's ranking – at number 15, with earnings of £13m – is a steep comedown since the heyday of Harry Potter sales in 2008, when she topped the highest-earners list with sales of £170m, more than the combined annual earnings of the nine other authors on the list that year.
James's earnings from her erotic novel, which seduced a vast readership with its combination of breathless romance and sado-masochism, saw her leapfrog top-earning stalwarts Danielle Steel and Stephen King. Steel and King have been fixtures of the list since Steel's Going Home and King's Carrie first came out 40 years ago.
Writers of literary fiction, perhaps unsurprisingly, are notable by their absence in a list dominated by crime, romance, and – since the advent of Potter – fantasy fiction for young readers which has crossover appeal to the adult market.
Forbes wrote: "If you're not writing in a genre with mass commercial appeal, you can pretty much forget about making the list. But even if you are, and your books are bestsellers, that's still not a guaranteed in."
Below the sky-high incomes of the top three, earnings drop off to a mere $28m for Bill O'Reilly at number four. The Fox News host whose non-fiction blockbusters Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever and Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot, stormed the New York Times bestseller list last year and make him the world's most successful non-fiction author.
At number five, children's author Jeff Kinney, who first published his Diary of a Wimpy Kid in digital form, puts in a strong show. He, as well as James, are among a rising number of authors who at least initially found their audiences through self-publishing rather than the traditional career path via literary agents and conventional print publishers.
Writers with packed publishing schedules churning out multiple releases each year also do well in the top-earners list, including Patterson, and romance author Nora Roberts, whose earnings of £23m put her at number eight.
The Forbes list:
EL James: $95m
James Patterson: $91m
Suzanne Collins: $55m
Bill O'Reilly: $28m
Danielle Steel: $26m
Jeff Kinney: $24m
Janet Evanovich: $24m
Nora Roberts: $23m
Dan Brown: $22m
Stephen King: $20m
Dean Koontz: $20m
John Grisham: $18m
David Baldacci: $15m
Rick Riordan: $14m
JK Rowling: $13m
George RR Martin: $12m
The list is compiled annually by Forbes magazine in the US, based on best estimates using sales data, published figures and information from industry sources. Between June 2012 and June 2013, its figures show James's supercharged besteseller sold faster than any other author in history – more than 70m books in the first eight months on sale in the US.
JK Rowling's ranking – at number 15, with earnings of £13m – is a steep comedown since the heyday of Harry Potter sales in 2008, when she topped the highest-earners list with sales of £170m, more than the combined annual earnings of the nine other authors on the list that year.
James's earnings from her erotic novel, which seduced a vast readership with its combination of breathless romance and sado-masochism, saw her leapfrog top-earning stalwarts Danielle Steel and Stephen King. Steel and King have been fixtures of the list since Steel's Going Home and King's Carrie first came out 40 years ago.
Writers of literary fiction, perhaps unsurprisingly, are notable by their absence in a list dominated by crime, romance, and – since the advent of Potter – fantasy fiction for young readers which has crossover appeal to the adult market.
Forbes wrote: "If you're not writing in a genre with mass commercial appeal, you can pretty much forget about making the list. But even if you are, and your books are bestsellers, that's still not a guaranteed in."
Below the sky-high incomes of the top three, earnings drop off to a mere $28m for Bill O'Reilly at number four. The Fox News host whose non-fiction blockbusters Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever and Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot, stormed the New York Times bestseller list last year and make him the world's most successful non-fiction author.
At number five, children's author Jeff Kinney, who first published his Diary of a Wimpy Kid in digital form, puts in a strong show. He, as well as James, are among a rising number of authors who at least initially found their audiences through self-publishing rather than the traditional career path via literary agents and conventional print publishers.
Writers with packed publishing schedules churning out multiple releases each year also do well in the top-earners list, including Patterson, and romance author Nora Roberts, whose earnings of £23m put her at number eight.
The Forbes list:
EL James: $95m
James Patterson: $91m
Suzanne Collins: $55m
Bill O'Reilly: $28m
Danielle Steel: $26m
Jeff Kinney: $24m
Janet Evanovich: $24m
Nora Roberts: $23m
Dan Brown: $22m
Stephen King: $20m
Dean Koontz: $20m
John Grisham: $18m
David Baldacci: $15m
Rick Riordan: $14m
JK Rowling: $13m
George RR Martin: $12m
No comments:
Post a Comment