James Patterson
There’s a great article in the NY Times Magazine this week about James Patterson, the country’s biggest selling author. I had seen his name in the bookstores, but holy cannoli, I had no idea how big Patterson was. I think I have a new literary hero, even though I’ve yet to read one of his books.
There are many different ways to catalog Patterson’s staggering success. Here are just a few: Since 2006, one out of every 17 novels bought in the United States was written by James Patterson. He is listed in the latest edition of “Guinness World Records,” published last fall, as the author with the most New York Times best sellers, 45, but that number is already out of date: he now has 51 — 35 of which went to No. 1.
That’s insane. Patterson outsells Stephen King, John Grisham, and Dan Brown combined. In his prior work life, Patterson worked in advertising. He put his expertise to good use by promoting one of his early books, and the rest is history. He now co-authors most of his books and “wrote” nine books in 2009.
I just picked up a Patterson novel yesterday. The chapters are really short. Really short. It’s about 300 pages, and there are at least 100 chapters. I feel like a genius–I read for 30 minutes last night and finished around 20 chapters. It was almost like being the guy who inspired Rain Man, who could read facing pages at the same time. The story, so far, is compelling. I’m usually not into these kinds of books, but I find myself turning the pages quite easily.
I wonder if he’d be interesting in partnering with one of the writers on this blog. Maybe he could corner the Asian American market. Or the Rice Chasah market. All I can say is that this guy is selling like mad.
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I think it says a LOT that James Patterson is essentially the ONLY white author who has managed to write about a non-white character (Alex Cross, which is even more remarkable because he’s black!) without bringing too much of his psychological baggage to the work. George Pelicanos also does some good work as well.
That said (and I understand that your comment is of course not meant to be taken literally) I don’t want a white guy to “corner” the market on non-white characters. That’s essentially what’s happened in film and TV and we all know how that one turned out.
A collaboration would be nice but again, would he working WITH and Asian writer, or would they be working WITH (read: for) him?
In any collaboration it’s the partner with the greater leverage who will get their own way –ask all those authors who write “Tom Clancy” franchise books how much it helped their own name recognition: not at all!
Jay Smack,
You make an excellent point. I probably should’ve mentioned Alex Cross, but I thought it might be premature since I’ve not read the character. I did, however, just finish my first Patterson novel last night. It was a fun read.
I also agree with you. THEY would be working FOR him. Unfortunately, it’s the way it goes. It’s not ideal, but if, for example, the Cross character is good, maybe he could create an equally good Asian American character?
(And the Patterson novel I read last night? It too had a co-author, but I’ve already forgotten her name!)