Forbes has named crime writer James Patterson the world’s highest paid author, and with his earnings of almost £51 million, he rakes in well over double that of the Danielle Steele, the next writer on the list. This year alone Patterson has already published six books, making a total of fifteen since January 2010. Just how can one man think up so many murder plots?!

With more than 80 books under his belt, Patterson’s income last year was boosted by a new publishing contract, signing a seventeen book deal with Hachette in 2009, in addition to fantastic e-book sales and young adult and teen titles.

Patterson has raised over a million pounds for charity by getting people to pay to have their names appear in his books, although in the case of Donald Trump, the businessman actually paid £50,000 to keep this name out of the author’s next book.

With book sales of over 250 million, a record forty five New York Times hardcover Number 1s and five books already made into films with more in the pipeline, Patterson is quite a force to be reckoned with. 

So what is it that’s so attractive about this writing? To bring out titles so frequently (even with the aid of co-authors at times), Patterson must have some sort of formula to his plots and writing. He’s not afraid to experiment with his leads but, to a certain extent, his readers know what to expect. He produces exciting, fast-paced yarns which are quite simply very gripping, and is obviously on to a winning thing. The man himself has been quoted as saying: "I want to entertain. That's a noble thing." And I think his readers would be unanimous in agreeing that he certainly attains his goal.


Highest Earning Authors

1:James Patterson: £51m

2: Danielle Steel, £21m

3: Stephen King, £17m

4: Janet Evanovich, £13m

5: Stephenie Meyer, £12m

6: Rick Riordan, £12m

7: Dean Koontz, £11.5m

8: John Grisham, £11m

9: Jeff Kinney, £10m

10: Nicholas Sparks, £9m

An interesting article on the Guardian’s book blog a while ago:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/apr/22/books-vanish-bookshops

Essentially it seems that when people lose their favourite bookstore they don’t necessarily turn their attentions to another shop, or even to good old Amazon – they simply stop buying as many books. How bizarre!

We had a much loved Borders in which we spent many a happy afternoon and were very sad indeed when we lost it after the company collapsed; but it certainly hasn’t stopped us from buying books. But then we’re fortunate to live close to Hay-on-Wye, a part of the UK that has many very good second-hand book shops.

One thing that I don’t do much anymore (and something I do feel guilty about) is to buy books for the full RRP (Recommended Retail Price) from independent book stores. It wasn’t that long ago that a book’s RRP was the set price in any shop you went in, but now shopping around, particularly on the internet, can lead to the consumer discovering a vast discrepancy in cost from different retailers.

I was in one of my favourite bookstores the other day, just having a browse, when I started flicking through a copy of ‘Faulks on Fiction’. It’s a beautiful looking book, and one which I am longing to read. It costs £20 RRP from my local bookshop, but less than £10 from Amazon; that’s quite a difference in price, with the only downside to the customer being the couple of days it takes to arrive from Amazon.

Except, if we don’t support and buy at least the occasional book for it’s RRP from smaller bookstores, then they really will disappear, and that would be a terrible shame.

Yes, book prices have gone up, but so has the cost of most things, and a paperback at full RRP still costs little more than a ticket to my local cinema – and gives much more value for money in my opinion. With six booklovers in our household I’ve worked out that although I’m purchasing more books than ever before, thanks to the fantastic second hand book shops I have locally, I’m probably spending less than I was ten years ago when I was just buying for me.

So maybe tomorrow I will pop out and buy myself ‘Faulks on Fiction’ for – shock, horror! – the full RRP after all.

It’s my husband’s big 3-0 next month and, naturally, I want to make a bit of a fuss. My first thought for something a little unique as a present was to get him a first edition, preferably signed, of one of his favourite books.

Having ummed and ahhed about what literary masterpiece to actually get him, I finally decided on Roald Dahl’s ‘My Uncle Oswald’ – wonderful author, great book, and one that my husband only has a pretty shabby second-hand copy of; plus, it was published relatively recently, so I was hoping I’d be able to get one in good condition. Easy peasy. I usually buy any used books from the many bookstores in my area but as I was after something specific, I figured the Internet was the best way to go.

Off I confidently went and typed ‘Roald Dahl Uncle Oswald first edition’ into google. 10,200 results. Blimey. The sheer number of websites selling collectible editions of books is just mindboggling; and there are so many different editions to choose from: uncorrected proofs, UK first editions, American first editions, signed copies, signed first edition copies…… It also turns out that there is a kind of secret code used to describe the condition of collectible books that I am still attempting to completely decipher.

The other problem I found was that most of the sellers don’t post photographs of the items; this can be really annoying, especially if the book was published with more than one cover design and you want to make sure that you order the artwork you like. There are items on eBay selling for a pound that have two or three pictures, yet I saw books on specialist sites priced at over a hundred pounds with not one photograph.

After three hours of searching I’ve come up with a plan: I’ll tell hubby that as he’s so particular about what he likes and I really want to get him a brilliant pressie, I think it’s best he buy his book for himself.

All of this almost makes me wish husband was the sort of man who’d appreciate the latest football shirt for his birthday, at least that would be simple to order and I could get on with the important task of sourcing a first edition of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ for myself!