'50 Shades Of Grey' Author EL James Tops Forbes' Richest Authors List
The former television exec raked in $95 million from sales of her kinky, chick-lit trilogy, which sold more than 70 million copies in 2012. James made $5 million for her seal of approval on a film adaptation, due in theaters in August 2014.
Forbes says there's a certain critera for making the list. The author pretty much has to write in a genre with mass commercial appeal. Even then, those authors have to crank out five or more works a year to be competitive. And books written for young adults that trickle into adult readership catapult authors onto the list.
James defied all the norms and still managed to knock long-time top-earner, James Patterson, to number two.
Patterson, who made $91 million in the last year, writes one of every 17 hardcovers released in the U.S. every year, according to Forbes.
James has to get cracking if she wants to stay at number one.
Here's the full list of the Top-Earning Authors, with their most recent best-sellers noted:
1. E.L. James, "50 Shades of Grey" — $95 million
2. James Patterson, "Maximum Ride," "Witch & Wizard" — $91 million
3. Suzanne Collins, "Hunger Games" — $55 million
4. Bill O'Reilly, "Killing Lincoln," "Killing Kennedy" — $28 million
5. Danielle Steel, romance novels — $26 million
6. Jeff Kinney, "Diary of a Whimpy Kid," "The Third Wheel" — $24 million
7. Janet Evanovich, Stephanie Plum detective novels — $24 million
8. Nora Roberts, "Thankless in Death," "Dark Witch" — $23 million
9. Dan Brown, "Inferno," "The Da Vinci Code" — $22 million
10. Stephen King, "Under the Dome," "The Shining," — $20 million