Friday, 29 October 2010

James Patterson joins Amazon's million club

Amazon announced that James Patterson has sold over 1 million Kindle ebooks (1,005,803 to be exact). He is only the second author to reach this mark, making him the second member of the “Kindle Million Club,” which recognizes authors whose books have sold over 1 million copies in the Kindle Store. This only includes paid Kindle sales, not free downloads.Stieg Larsson, author of the Millennium Trilogy, was the first author to hit the 1 million mark. Larsson’s three books—The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest—are among the top ten bestselling Kindle


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Records,” published last fall, as the author with the most New York Times best sellers, 45, but that number is already out of date: he now has 51 — 35 of which went to No. 1.
Patterson and his publisher, Little, Brown & Co., a division of the Hachette Book Group, have an unconventional relationship. In addition to his two editors, Patterson has three full-time Hachette employees (plus assistants) devoted exclusively to him: a so-called brand manager who shepherds Patterson’s adult books through the production process, a marketing director for his young-adult titles and a sales manager for all his books. Despite this support staff and his prodigious output, Patterson is intimately involved in the publication of his books. A former ad executive — Patterson ran J. Walter Thompson’s North American branch before becoming a full-time writer in 1996 — he handles all of his own advertising and closely monitors just about every other step of the publication process, from the design of his jackets to the timing of his books’ release to their placement in stores.


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