The most popular writer is:

Forget the bestseller lists, the true test of a writers popularity is how many friends he/she has on their Facebook fan page -

Based on overwhelming popularity on Facebook, the top author on the social networking site is Stephen King with 1.3 million fans. Perhaps more surprisingly is George Orwell's ranking at number three, followed by Twilight Saga author Stephenie Meyer in sixth.

With a combination of contemporary and classic writers, the eclectic group listed has been compiled according to the number of Facebook fans, gathered with statistical tools from the website AllFaceBook.com.

These were the top 10 authors, as of November 11:

1. Stephen King (1,302,973 fans)
2. Nicholas Sparks (506,300)
3. George Orwell (399,403)
4. Shakespeare (356,920)
5. Nora Roberts (290,836)
6. Stephenie Meyer (261,176)
7. Jane Austen (230,814)
8. Anne Rice (229,192)
9. Jodi Picoult (209,637)
10. Sidney Sheldon (207,727)

Others in the top 20 include the venerable Agatha Christie with 191,972 fans at 11, J.K. Rowling with 186,942 at 13, Edgar Allen Poe at 14, suspense author Tom Clancy at 17, Kahil Gibran at 18, Paulo Coelho at 19, and J.R.R. Tolkien at 20. And poor old Jack Martin (me) is placed somewhere around number 9000,65.