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How James Patterson became the world’s best-selling author
- irrational 4y agoI’ve never read any Patterson books. Anyone have a recommendation of a single one to read to get a feel for what makes him a best seller?
- bwb 4y agoI tried one last year, worst book i have read in 10 years. I have no idea why they are popular. They are all written by ghost writers i think.
- aaronbrethorst 4y agoFTA: "Patterson supplies detailed outlines for his books. His co-writers then flesh out these narrative skeletons into installments of popular series"
- ilrwbwrkhv 4y agoHe has scaled up thrillers like a startup. Hence his personal wealth is crazy.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dmitriid 4y agoIt's an unexplained phenomenon. I know of a Russian author, Dontsova [1] that is the same: hundreds of shitty detective novels, immensely popular. [1] A wikipedia article, as badly written as the books: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darya_Dontsova?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darya_Dontsova?wprov=sfti1
- richardatlarge 4y agoMaybe it’s best understood like a Big Mac. One crappy burger after another, eaten for eternity because they are reliably average. There’s money to be made as a serial provider of homogeneous sustenance
- cs137 4y agoIt's the exploit/explore tradeoff. In the cultural industries, most consumers (the majority of whom don't care to be more than that) prefer to exploit--that is, read or watch or listen to something very similar to what they already have--than explore. We think readers should be a smarter crowd--and, thus, more upscale in their choices--than TV watchers and popular music listeners (as both groups comprise, roughly, the general population). This is possibly the case, but it seems to be cancelled out by the massive time investment involved in seriously reading a book: eight hours for a typical novel, as opposed to an hour for a TV show or 3 minutes for a pop song. The high cost of exploration means that the book world has the same problem and, unfortunately, the processes and people who are trusted to filter for quality, quite frankly, don't. Traditional publishers follow the market and "book buzz" is built from the opinions of highly influential non-readers.
- michaelt 4y agoThe target market probably doesn't see it as shitty or uninnovative, but rather as the next instalment with their beloved series/characters/author. The people who go to Marvel movies aren't looking for fresh new superheros, or an challenging new format where Batman explores the true root causes of crime in society.
- leobg 4y agoShort sentences.
- zmmmmm 4y agoI think it's not so much a single book, but that he writes long series of them with well developed characters that bridge across them. There is one series (Alex Cross) I'm listening to on audio book now that has at least 29 books in it. None of them are super great but its like comfort food ... you finish one and the familiar characters are all there when you go back for the next. So this is the secret to have people buying huge numbers of books ... you always want the next one in the series. Mind you, I borrow these for background listening / when I go to sleep at night. I would never spend the time on them as a focused activity.
- nickstinemates 4y agoAlong Came a Spider if you like crime books. It's pretty decent. There's a movie with Morgan Freeman if you'd prefer to go that route.
- redshirtrob 4y agoRead the first "Alex Cross" book. It's...not very good, but it's a pretty good example of Patterson's work. I read the first 3-4 books in the Alex Cross series, but gave up after finding no growth or improvement on the character or the author. I think you'll find his popularity similar to what makes lots of other things popular. His books are rather bland, but not quite boring. He doesn't pack a lot of exposition between the action so the plot moves forward. Unfortunately this often makes the characters seem quite stupid as they rush to action rather than ponder the situation. I find this unrealistic and annoying, especially given Alex Cross's profession. Obviously, I'm not a fan.
- nrp 4y agoThe article specifies “living author.” Agatha Christie and possibly others have him beat otherwise.
- dybber 4y agoHC Andersen
- School-Cotton 4y agoMoses (or whoever wrote the Pentateuch) probably has everyone beat.
- shp0ngle 4y agoMao has the “Little Red Book”, I think that one is the most popular book in the world after Bible.
- easytiger 4y agoIn fairness it's easy to have a best seller if you just shoot the people who won't read it
- bell-cot 4y agoBut it is far, far easier to become a bestselling author than it is to become the dictator of a large country - which is kinda a prerequisite for the "or we'll shoot you" strategy.
- bitwize 4y agoLet's throw in the collected works of L. Ron Hubbard if we're going that route. His books are always selling off the shelves... because Scientologists are "strongly encouraged" to buy them by the cartload.
- bell-cot 4y agoLast I paid attention, scholars seemed to agree that there's nothing resembling a single author for the Pentateuch. Wikipedia's coverage of this is terse at best, but near-nobody here is likely to read a "serious" account of this subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorship_of_the_Bible#Table_II:_Hebrew_Bible_/_Protestant_Old_Testament https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorship_of_the_Bible#Table_...
- Fargoan 4y agoLiterally don't even know who that is.
- TedShiller 4y agoYou do now ;)
- Fargoan 4y agoI don't. I didn't read the article
- TedShiller 4y agoSure you do, you know his name now. You’ll notice James Patterson books everywhere unless you close your eyes
- xboxnolifes 4y agoGo into any book store or library (at least in the us) and you'll probably find out. Every one I've been in has had a table at the main entrance full of his books or on a table in the young adult section.
- Fargoan 4y agoI just go straight to the magazine rack and grab a copy of 2600 or browse the manga section
- Emma_Goldman 4y agoThe title is misleading. Patterson is not the living author to have sold the most books. JK Rowling has sold more, and perhaps others (Akira Toriyama, Danielle Steel). [1] I think the claim is that he is currently selling the most per year. Oddly, I had never heard of Patterson. How is that possible given his apparent cultural dominance? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_fiction_authors https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_fiction...
- boomboomsubban 4y ago>I think the claim is that he is currently selling the most per year They're making an oddly specific claim >Publishers Weekly has determined that he is the best-selling author of the past seventeen years.
- kbelder 4y agoWhich obviously means someone else is the best selling author of the past eighteen years.
- cli 4y agoHis books are everywhere in airport bookstores in Canada and the US. I think I have also seen them in large bookstores, such as Indigo.
- edflsafoiewq 4y agoEvery book store and library I've ever been in has a whole "James Patterson" shelf. Easy to find, since his name is the biggest thing on the spine. You can somehow just tell they're garbage without even taking one off the shelf.
- Emma_Goldman 4y ago> You can somehow just tell they're garbage without even taking one off the shelf. For better or worse, I honestly think I just blank out these kinds of books. Still, I would have thought that the existence of a living author selling in the hundreds of millions would trickle down to me through one cultural tributary or another. Maybe through articles like this, through a blockbuster film adaptation, through word of mouth, etc.
- Fezzik 4y agoBoth Danielle Steel and J.K. Rowling appear to have sold more books. Steel’s numbers in the wiki entry are from 2010, and Rowling’s from 2018; I assume they have only increased since then. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_fiction_authors https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_fiction...
- hmate9 4y agoFor those unfamiliar: His books are quite generic but provide some fun for the casual reader. He has released over 200 books and sold over 400 million copies. He uses a team of ghostwriters to actually develop the books/series after he gives the detailed outlines of the characters and the stories. His success is mainly how he has been able to scale up and release so many books with his name attached.
- quickthrower2 4y agoWhich is fine. It makes him a 'unicorn' in software business parlance.
- cs137 4y agoI would say that it's bad for writing, though. Ultimately, what he's doing exacerbates the absurdly lopsided distribution of visibility and rewards that writers experience. Most books sell horribly, and not for reasons of low quality but because discoverability is a huge problem, even in today's world of recommendation algorithms and the like. There are a good number of "famous" writers who live in poverty, because the percentage of books that sell well enough to live on is so small. Traditional publishers don't bother to invest much in a book unless they are sure it would sell without them (i.e., the author has 4,000,000 Instagram followers). The typical budget for marketing and publicity is about $300. The thing is, trad-pubs don't have to be better. They're inundated with unsolicited manuscripts ("slush") and even though very few of those are excellent, at least 5% are in a state where a competent editor could turn it into a book as good as any other commercial bestseller. They have all the power and, to them, authors are a fungible commodity. Oh, and if you think a literary agent is going to help you navigate this, well... unless you went to prep school with an agent, you won't even get _read_. You'll sit in a query pile, possibly get a glance by a 19-year-old unpaid intern, and get a form-letter rejection 18 months later. You can self-publish, but less than 1% of the population has the savings and free time to do it right. It costs $10,000, minimum--you'll have to hire an editor, a cover designer, a formatter... and while you probably won't be able to afford a publicist you'll be competing against people who can--and non-writing efforts will take up at least a hundred hours of your time--some people find the marketing aspect fun and if that's you, great, but most writers don't, which is a big part of why so many of them pursue traditional publishing even though it's abusive if you're in the bottom 99%. Allowing big-name authors to supercharge their apparent productivity by hiring teams of "co-authors" who do the actual writing exacerbates this problem. I don't see a good way to fix it, and what Patterson does probably shouldn't be outlawed, but it still sucks. The book world, in which name and "author brand" matter far more than literary quality, is already pretty moribund... and this kind of stuff doesn't help.
- midasuni 4y agoI assumed many of his books were ghostwritten
- vixen99 4y agoSimply dreadful stuff.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mg 4y agoInteresting. I run the literature recommendations site Gnooks: https://www.gnooks.com https://www.gnooks.com And Patterson is on position 39 of the most like authors. Position 1 is held by Joanne K. Rowling: https://www.gnooks.com/top https://www.gnooks.com/top I wonder what that says about the demographics of Gnooks. Maybe that the users are younger.
- shultays 4y agoJoanne Hah, first time I heard her name
- nickstinemates 4y agoThe books are formulaic, they're pretty straightforward, the plot twists are sometimes easy to predict. I've listened to / read over 25 of the Alex Cross books (the main character of his most popular book series,) I actually like the characters and their personality and their continuity throughout the series. It's not the best prose. I read a lot. I think of it like watching Law & Order or some other cop TV show. I mostly read these types of books on airplanes or listen to them when driving. The books aren't really meant to have the lingering impact of a 19th century classic or a 1984/brave new world or something like the alchemist. They don't take you to a new world or explore sci fi concepts. No aliens or weird tech or anything like this. Just a mirror of the real world with real world constraints with likeable characters and interesting, if sometimes dated, plots.
- kriro 4y agoTo be fair, most crime/thrillers are formulaic and if you don't follow the standard structure it won't exactly be easy to get published. There's the basic structure, usually three acts and certain expectations the audience has (fake ending/final twist, speech praising the villain, visit to the villains lair etc). A pretty good book that covers this is: "The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know" where the author goes through Silence of the Lambs. I think he also has a similar book for a romance novel. After reading that book (or similar books by other authors) you'll be pretty confident in forecasting what happens in most movies, you watch, too. Self-reflection at the midpoint for example. It's a pretty interesting exercise to scroll to the 33% mark in any given ebook and search for the typical act 1 -> act 2 transition etc.
- nickstinemates 4y agoAll very good points, and if you ever want to read/listen to the books that defined the genre and formula, pick up A Study in Scarlet, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (or one of the numerous short stories that accompanied his works.) What I like about the short stories in particular on audible is the stories are quick and digestible and novel. Perfect for a bedtime story or a quick car ride. In particular, this[1] one is worth the 1 credit if you're an audible subscriber. Stephen Fry for 68 hours. Hard to beat. 1: https://www.audible.com/pd/Sherlock-Holmes-Audiobook/B06WLMWF2S https://www.audible.com/pd/Sherlock-Holmes-Audiobook/B06WLMW...
- elcapitan 4y agoIronically, there's even a masterclass by James Patterson on how to write like James Patterson https://www.masterclass.com/classes/james-patterson-teaches-writing https://www.masterclass.com/classes/james-patterson-teaches-...
- Arrath 4y agoSounds like a recruiting pipeline.
- patchtopic 4y agoI read lots of (genre) fiction books but never heard of this guy before today, or any of his books.
- mercy_dude 4y agoThis is a guy who co-wrote Clinton autobiography in the height of Epstein drama. And everyone still cheers him.
- smegsicle 4y agodid he help diddle kids as research?
- wafriedemann 4y agoI read two or three books of his when I was in school to improve my english. I found him on the NYT best seller's list, where he seems to be a constant. You could argue that at some point this becomes self sustaining, but then again, there aren't many with a track record this consistent.
- vlark 4y agoFalse. James Patterson became the world's best outliner who handed off his ideas to other authors to make whole.
- bitwize 4y agoHe's a hack like Jeff Rovin or Dan Brown. But as long as he keeps turning that crank, he can produce airport fiction the masses will snap up and make shittons of money. There's a reason why they call it "potboiler", and even good authors are known to produce it.
- pessimizer 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Kostabi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Kostabi does the same thing for "fine" art. edit: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-decades-80s-art-stardom-painter-mark-kostabi-hustling https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-decades-80s-ar...
- mrtweetyhack 4y ago
- gwern 4y ago> A 2010 profile of Patterson in the Times Magazine portrays him as a brilliant marketer closely involved in every level of the publication and promotion of his books. According to the profile, Patterson felt so strongly that “Along Came a Spider” should be advertised on television that he produced a commercial at his own expense. He urged his publisher to release the subsequent titles in the Alex Cross series with a signature style of cover art, making himself not just an author but a brand. This marketing savvy is another side of Patterson that’s absent from “James Patterson.” Instead, the author presents himself as a “blue-collar kid” (his father was an insurance salesman, a detail also not mentioned in the book) who lucked into the best job in the world. In the book’s first chapter, he ascribes his success to a saying drummed into him by his grandmother: “Hungry dogs run faster.” Yet the ravenous ambition that so obviously drives him is a subject he skirts again and again. Seems like a case of childhood emotional neglect: a void that can never be filled no matter how much achievement.
- lazlee 4y agoOne summer I got stuck in the back woods of Alberta with nothing to read but a plastic grocery bag filled with James Patterson novels. I read everything in that bag and not for one second did I believe one word of anything that he had written. Gawd, what an awful experience. I'll never read another book by that lame ass hack again.
- kderbyma 4y agoa team of ghost writers :)