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. 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. 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.Īt number five, children's author Jeff Kinney, who first published his Diary of a Wimpy Kid in digital form, puts in a strong show. But even if you are, and your books are bestsellers, that's still not a guaranteed in."īelow the sky-high incomes of the top three, earnings drop off to a mere $28m for Bill O'Reilly at number four. 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.įorbes wrote: "If you're not writing in a genre with mass commercial appeal, you can pretty much forget about making the list. Steel and King have been fixtures of the list since Steel's Going Home and King's Carrie first came out 40 years ago. 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. James discusses her latest book 'Freed: Fifty Shades Freed as told by Christian,' which she considers the final chapter in the Fifty Shades Trilogy. 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. ABC News J‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ author writes her final chapter E. 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.
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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.
![fifty shades of grey author fifty shades of grey author](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61R-fKw8zwL.jpg)
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). 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.