Making it big

There are few authors in the world who ever reach the dizzy heights of Forbes billionaires list, but one or two manage it.

We can all dream big, and we don't want to  be faced with questions about how to manage our money once we make it, so hearing about others who have made it can be illuminating. Some do it better than others. Some have a talent for it, and others mismanage it, but reading how one famous author has done it is illuminating.

Try reading this article by James B Stewart:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/24/business/in-the-chamber-of-secrets-jk-rowlings-net-worth.html?_r=0 and join those who wonder how much money J K Rowling has made and what she has done with it. If it is any of our business!

Best selling fiction 2015

This morning I wanted to see a list of titles for best-selling UK fiction of 2015, and came up with this list:

Amazon Best sellers 2015

A God in Ruins

by Kate Atkinson

DEAD IN THE WATER 

by Peter Tickler

Make Me: (Jack Reacher 20)

by Lee Child

Shopaholic to the Rescue

by Sophie Kinsella

The Girl on the Train

by Paula Hawkins

The Lady in the Van

by Alan Bennett

The Letter

by Kathryn Hughes

DEAD SECRET

By Janice Frost

Personal: (Jack Reacher 19)

By Lee Child

The Good Life

by Martina Cole

There are many literary lists of titles that have passed me by, often by authors unknown to me. What I want to do is have a list of the best selling fiction for Amazon and then check it against a Nielsen list of all book sales and then check that against a list of American titles. I suspect there will an astonishing difference!

Autumn masterclass

 Joyce Maynard seems pleased with the James Patterson MasterClass in writing fiction. You know - the one I've received adverts for - and I'm sure you have - over the last three weeks.

Patterson covers where he gets his ideas, designs his characters—and what makes a character compelling. Villains. Creating tension. Writing Dialogue that doesn’t sound like real life—which would be tedious. He writes dialogue that’s wittier, tighter, more filled with dramatic tension and suspense, than anything ever said around the dinner table.

He believes in the importance of a great outline which is the thing he actually writes before he turns it over to his "stable of co-authors." (The guys who actually write the books.)

He believes in research, surprises, action, and claims that if a story isn’t galloping along, it’s sinking. Fast. The first sentence must be a killer, every page needs to contain some drama and intrigue; suspense and excitement that keeps the reader in the chair.

“I’m not that concerned with style," Patterson says. "Don’t think about the sentences. Just keep that train roaring along.

Write in such a way that words “turn on the movie projector” in a reader’s head,”

Can James Patterson’s MasterClass turn out an accomplished author? Not if a person doesn’t have some natural instincts. The MasterClass has not been created—nor will it be—that can impart talent, or originality, or simply a good ear. For the three hours it takes to listen to all 22 segments of his MasterClass, students may actually get to feel like writers. And that in itself is a bonus.

Thoughts on Hugh Howey's WOOL

Why the peculiar title? The experts keep telling us aspiring writers that a cover is all and the title comes close second in the quest for readers. I galloped through the book - except to eat, sleep and walk Tim - and came to the end slightly puzzled.

First of all - the cover is eye-catching but not informative in my humble opinion. The title is even less informative. Having just finished a book called The Wedding Yarn, which involved a wool shop, I might be forgiven for thinking this new story would be about sheep or knitting or both.  Not at all. The only thing I can see that is relevant to the story is that the powers who run the silo are pulling the wool over everyone's eyes in the hope of keeping them all trapped within its protection. Naughty, and definitely not nice.

But then the alternative is worse. The air outside the silo is toxic. That at least seems to be truthful. So you stay inside or you die. Not a happy alternative. The first two thirds of the book are excellent, with  lots of detail about life in the silo, some doomed people who want to "go outside," and  what the Americans call a kick-ass heroine called Juliette. (Had I been HH, I would have picked a shorter name. Imagine having to type two e's and two t's every time for no apparent gain in pronunciation.)

But the last section seems to unravel (to keep the wool pun going) or else I read too fast and missed important info along the way. The way Lukas guessed what had happened was odd, the way Bernard vanished was doubly odd and we were never told what burn injuries Juliette suffered, or what transpired between her and her father. There was also the curiosity of the kids in the other silo - the oldest was fifteen, yet Solo said he'd been there thirty years on his own. So who conceived and bore the children, brought them up? Who kept the lights running?

Any answers delightfully received!

Top-selling authors

Top selling authors belong to a rare club and I suppose we all, secretly, in our heart of hearts, want to join! Jeff Bercovici of Forbes has some interesting thoughts to share in his articles on the topic. So what lessons can the rest of us pick up? The most sound seems to be - Write in a genre that has mass commercial appeal.

(FORBES bases its estimates on sales data, published figures and information from industry sources between June 2012 and June 2013.) 

Top of the list in 2012 is E L James (aka Erika Leonard, nee Mitchell) who has reputedly earned $95 million (£60 million) for her bondage trilogy. As everyone probably knows, she originally wrote it as fan fiction in the style of Twilight author Stephanie Meyer. The books leapt straight into every bestseller list, which throws an interesting side light on modern culture purely because of the theme running through all three books. However, that is not what interests us in this instance. Instead we should speculate if s the books would have had such success if the electronic reading device – which gave every reader a discreet way to imbibe such spicy stuff - had not been invented. 70 million copies sold between Jan-Aug in the USA.  As my good friend Jeffrey once said when he heard I'd taken up writing - “Remember – shagging sells!”

In second place that year was James Patterson, who publishes five or more titles a year with $91 million (£58 million) earned between June 2012 and June 2013. 

It seems fantasy fiction for young adults is a good market, especially if it attracts adult readers. No 3 on the list is Suzanne Collins, who published The Hunger Games trilogy. And earned $55 million. If you can manage a hit film of the story, that will really push book sales. You may have heard of Nora Roberts, too. Well, she stands at 8 on the list, having earned $23 million in 2012. You would think, wouldn't you, that they had all earned enough and they would stop writing and let some other author have a chance at the top prizes.

Michael Pietsch, CEO of Hachette Book Group thinks it’s the surprise and originality of some stories that leads to the giant sales. That’s why there are all these delicious stories of the book that was rejected by 96 publishers – because people are looking at what worked in the past. Then suddenly one brave publisher decides to take a risk, and finds a success on his/her hands.

Unhappily, there is no science behind forecasting the next bestseller, but there is a lot of luck.

Read some of the original articles at the links below:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/fifty-shades-eljames-forbes-highest-paid-authors-499478

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2012/08/09/women-on-the-rise-among-the-worlds-top-earnings-authors/

Fiction Bestsellers

I've always known that authors writing school text books were on to a good thing. I've frequently tried to get dh to write the definitive text on auto engineering, to no avail. I've even quoted facts at him, such as did he know that the man who created the Mr Men series of kids books reached no 2 on the list of authors who sold the most books between 2000-2009? I added that at number 7 is the author of hundreds of study guides that have earned him a staggering £49 million. (Ah, correction - the article in the Telegraph says they study guides have taken £49 million at the tills, so maybe the author did not receive all of it.)

The chart listing the top hundred books of the decade  is equally interesting when we look at fiction. For all the sideswipes over the years at Enid Blyton's books, she is present at number 10. Even more surprising is the fact that Jamie Oliver's cook books make him second in earnings to J K Rowling and put him ahead of Dan Brown. (What is it about that rapidly expanding young man that makes him so much more successful than say James Martin or Nigel Slater? I wish I knew, for I find his "whack it in" style of dialogue irritating.)

J K, by the way, has sold 29 million books with a sales value of 215 million. I don't suppose she got all of that, but still, what she did receive would be a hefty sum. Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code was the most successful single title with 5.2 million copies sold. It is worth studying the list for the unexpected. Lyn Andrews, for example - a  shy, gentle lady I heard speak in Corbridge just last year has sold  copies that garnered £9.2 million. I bought just four authors in the list - numbers 15,70, 72 and 100.

 If you want to read Brian MacArthur's full article, here's the link:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/6866648/Bestselling-authors-of-the-decade.html

and here's the list:

Author, Voume Sold, Value

1 J K Rowling 29,084,999 £225.9m

2 Roger Hargreaves 14,163,141 £26.6m

3 Dan Brown 13,372,007 £74.1m

4 Jacqueline Wilson 12,673,148 £69.9m

5 Terry Pratchett 10,455,397 £77.2m

6 John Grisham 9,862,998 £65.9m

7 Richard Parsons 9,561,776 £49.2m

8 Danielle Steel 9,119,149 £51m

9 James Patterson 8,172,647 £53.8m

10 Enid Blyton 7,910,758 £31.2m

11 Bill Bryson 7,409,656 £61.2m

12 Patricia Cornwell 7,355,180 £49.8m

13 Jamie Oliver 7,244,620 £89.5m

14 Daisy Meadows 7,149,788 £24.1m

15 Ian Rankin 6,848,039 £44.3m

16 Julia Donaldson 6,621,594 £33.7m

17 Alexander McCall Smith 6,609,779 £40.6m

18 Francesca Simon 6,564,681 £31.6m

19 Bernard Cornwell 6,297,911 £45.5m

20 Roald Dahl 6,169,406 £33.8m

21 Martina Cole 6,021,960 £41.7m

22 Philip Pullman 5,544,376 £35.8m

23 Stephenie Meyer 5,487,313 £32m

24 Maeve Binchy 5,476,134 £37.6m

25 J R R Tolkien 5,280,406 £50.6m

26 Delia Smith 5,269,783 £58.7m

27 Stephen King 5,268,577 £38m

28 Marian Keyes 5,029,363 £31.7m

29 Jeremy Clarkson 4,913,989 £35.1m

30 Josephine Cox 4,651,166 £24m

31 Sophie Kinsella 4,528,095 £27.7m

32 Jodi Picoult 4,514,620 £24.1m

33 Terry Deary 4,495,655 £21.6m

34 Anthony Horowitz 4,304,041 £23.6m

35 Lemony Snicket 4,220,508 £23.9m

36 Andy McNab 4,123,633 £30.4m

37 Ian McEwan 4,040,887 £27.7m

38 Wilbur Smith 3,871,484 £30.1m

39 Michael Connelly 3,785,330 £23.5m

40 Sebastian Faulks 3,782,665 £27.5m

41 Kathy Reichs 3,514,087 £22.2m

42 Helen Fielding 3,473,003 £22m

43 Cecelia Ahern 3,422,899 £19.5m

44 Joanne Harris 3,392,198 £21.2m

45 William Shakespeare 3,333,670 £17.8m

46 Carol Vorderman 3,315,641 £11.2m

47 Chris Ryan 3,289,855 £21m

48 Lee Child 3,274,928 £20.2m

49 Dave Pelzer 3,217,905 £20.2m

50 R L Stine 3,096,584 £13.1m

51 Catherine Cookson 3,020,751 £16.8m

52 Dean Koontz 3,010,242 £17.5m

53 W Awdry 2,991,572 £9.9m

54 Michael Morpurgo 2,989,161 £15.1m

55 Jeffery Deaver 2,972,145 £16.9m

56 Khaled Hosseini 2,957,026 £21.1m

57 Nick Hornby 2,956,544 £19.6m

58 Ben Elton 2,907,294 £20m

59 Katie Price 2,856,697 £21.8m

60 Jill Mansell 2,798,518 £14.2m

61 Mark Haddon 2,783,600 £16.8m

62 Lucy Daniels 2,768,332 £11.2m

63 Dr Seuss 2,760,156 £14.8m

64 Tess Gerritsen 2,745,556 £14.7m

65 Tony Parsons 2,731,436 £17.3m

66 Alan Titchmarsh 2,707,834 £27.5m

67 Harlan Coben 2,672,713 £15.1m

68 Lauren Child 2,632,369 £13.4m

69 Darren Shan 2,617,959 £14.4m

70 Nigella Lawson 2,616,955 £39.2m

71 Robert C Atkins 2,591,073 £17.3m

72 Philippa Gregory 2,577,235 £17.4m

73 Jane Green 2,498,100 £14.8m

74 Clive Cussler 2,435,718 £16.5m

75 Fiona Watt 2,431,376 £14.1m

76 Cathy Kelly 2,391,540 £13.2m

77 Penny Vincenzi 2,358,041 £14.6m

78 Charles Dickens 2,341,980 £9.3m

79 Eric Hill 2,334,612 £12.1m

80 Joanna Trollope 2,333,337 £14.5m

81 Meg Cabot 2,309,844 £12.1m

82 Jackie Collins 2,295,308 £14.4m

83 Lesley Pearse 2,261,007 £12.6m

84 A A Milne 2,255,346 £14.5m

85 Paulo Coelho 2,229,564 £16.3m

86 Eric Carle 2,225,336 £12.1m

87 Louis de Bernières 2,221,481 £15.3m

88 Jack Higgins 2,207,100 £12.4m

89 Anita Shreve 2,198,899 £13.4m

90 Karin Slaughter 2,196,031 £12.6m

91 Louise Rennison 2,172,395 £11.9m

92 Sheila O’Flanagan 2,162,811 £10.8m

93 Robert Harris 2,150,818 £16m

94 Paul McKenna 2,114,476 £16.6m

95 Alice Sebold 2,106,630 £13.2m

96 Gordon Ramsay 2,094,376 £23.4m

97 Roderick Hunt 2,077,092 £7.3m

98 Frank McCourt 2,055,939 £14.9m

99 Dav Pilkey 2,051,622 £9.4m

100 Lyn Andrews 2,027,382 £9.2m

Did any names on that list surprise you? 

Bestsellers

Read this article order to find out where we're all going wrong! It is very good, and I won't even try to paraphrase it because she says it all and you should read it all - yes, all the way to the end. http://www.danutakean.com/blog/how-to-write-a-bestseller-2/

"Why do badly written books become bestsellers? It’s a question that banged against my consciousness as I tried to read 50 Shades of Grey, E L James’s unintentionally hilarious erotic fanfic tribute to Twilight. An ebook, it has become a self-publishing phenomenon, earning the British author an eye-watering advance from a traditional publishing house."

It's just as well that we know what we're up against when we try to get published, and sometimes I wonder if agents and publishers of the past are squirming in their graves as they see what is published these days. I would no more buy a celebrity book than I would fly to the moon - yet people are doing that these days. I hear it's the latest vacation for the super rich.

And I've told a fib, because I bought Rafa's book, and I suppose he counts as a celebrity. I was thinking more of your Katie Price-type celebrity - the ones with silicone breasts, botoxed lips and hair pieces but hardly a brain in evidence and very little to say except how to look good and keep themselves in the headlines. Maybe I'm being cruel to the KP-type celebs, and you may ask how could I know what their books are about if I've never read one. Good Question! It's prejudice, I suppose - I imagine I know what they will write about. Their actions speak louder than words, sometimes.

And - don't forget to read the Danuta Kean article!

World Book Night - how was it?

World Book Night. I watched on tv, and the only part I enjoyed was the hour with Sue Perkins. The rest was the usual stodgy stuff about literary novels that often, as so many people agreed, may be full of beautifully crafted sentences but don’t have a plot.
Sue admitted to spending her life reading literary novels, and claimed her favourite was Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Bombarded by the BBC with a selection of bestsellers from the last fifty years, she began to feel that she wasn’t at all well read and pursued interesting interviews with several best selling authors including Ian Rankin, Felix Francis, Joanne Harris, Lee Child, and others.

I have to admit that as an English Lit graduate, I haven’t read all the classics. I did read Crime and Punishment, but beyond the general premise of committing murder and feeling guilty, I don’t recall much of it. The same with Oblomov, who stayed in bed all day. War and Peace is still waiting, and may go on waiting. Anna Karenina I enjoyed.

All it really means is that I am still discovering novelists like Wilkie Collins and Stevenson's peculiar episodic adventures like The Black Arrow. My Sony reader gives me access to the classics for free (or a very small fee) and it is illuminating to read the old classics now, when I’m attempting my own (coughs delicately) epic.
The last segment of WBN on tv was a group of five people who got together to decide which twelve novels by newly published authors would make the grade. (Since none of them were known to me, I wasn't overly moved by their reasoning.) The novels were all literary (as opposed to potential bestsellers), and when the fifty were whittled down to 12, the panel agreed that many of them showed distinct signs of Creative Writing School rules. (Evidently there are now some 200 courses available around the country.) Flashbacks and other stylistic features abounded and one judge declared regretfully that out of the 50, he couldn't recall a single novel whose storyline travelled in a straight line from A to B to the end.
One has to wonder if creative writing schools are going to kill the creative instinct rather than nurture it.