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How James Patterson became the world’s best-selling author

newyorker.com

11–20 of 89 posts

Re: How James Patterson became the world’s best-selling author

#11
post #3

The article specifies “living author.” Agatha Christie and possibly others have him beat otherwise.

Moses (or whoever wrote the Pentateuch) probably has everyone beat.

Mao has the “Little Red Book”, I think that one is the most popular book in the world after Bible.

Re: How James Patterson became the world’s best-selling author

#12
post #6

I’ve never read any Patterson books. Anyone have a recommendation of a single one to read to get a feel for what makes him a best seller?

I tried one last year, worst book i have read in 10 years. I have no idea why they are popular. They are all written by ghost writers i think.

It's an unexplained phenomenon. I know of a Russian author, Dontsova [1] that is the same: hundreds of shitty detective novels, immensely popular.

[1] A wikipedia article, as badly written as the books: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darya_Dontsova?wprov=sfti1

Re: How James Patterson became the world’s best-selling author

#13
The title is misleading. Patterson is not the living author to have sold the most books. JK Rowling has sold more, and perhaps others (Akira Toriyama, Danielle Steel). [1] I think the claim is that he is currently selling the most per year.

Oddly, I had never heard of Patterson. How is that possible given his apparent cultural dominance?

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_fiction...

Re: How James Patterson became the world’s best-selling author

#15
For those unfamiliar: His books are quite generic but provide some fun for the casual reader.

He has released over 200 books and sold over 400 million copies. He uses a team of ghostwriters to actually develop the books/series after he gives the detailed outlines of the characters and the stories.

His success is mainly how he has been able to scale up and release so many books with his name attached.

Re: How James Patterson became the world’s best-selling author

#17
post #15

For those unfamiliar: His books are quite generic but provide some fun for the casual reader. He has released over 200 books and sold over 400 million copies. He uses a team of ghostwriters to actually develop the books/series after he gives the detailed outlines of the characters and the stories. His success is mainly how he has been able to scale up and release so many books with his name attached.

Which is fine. It makes him a 'unicorn' in software business parlance.

Re: How James Patterson became the world’s best-selling author

#18

The title is misleading. Patterson is not the living author to have sold the most books. JK Rowling has sold more, and perhaps others (Akira Toriyama, Danielle Steel). [1] I think the claim is that he is currently selling the most per year. Oddly, I had never heard of Patterson. How is that possible given his apparent cultural dominance? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_fiction...

His books are everywhere in airport bookstores in Canada and the US. I think I have also seen them in large bookstores, such as Indigo.
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