Big Money from Novels

...there are still at least a handful of authors who are making big money with their novels. According to Forbes' new list of money-making authors, the top 10 combined brought in $270 million for the last year ending June 1. James Patterson topped the magazine's list, earning $70 million largely thanks to a deal he signed last fall to write 17 novels by the end of 2012 for an estimated $100 million.

— Slate
from an original story in Forbes
Friday, August 20, 2010

I wish to announce my new deal with my publisher, Holyoned Subsidiary, to write 42 novels by next December (2010), working entirely alone in a cork-lined studio, while being continuously filmed by Fox Reality TV. I will be allowed to go to the bathroom twice a day (this also will be filmed, and recorded for quality control.) Three meals a day will be supplied by Denny’s, free of charge, though it is understood that I will deliver a brief commercial before each meal and say “Yum” at least once while eating it. The novels are to be at least 60,000 words long and contain more violent deaths than characters and at least three pages of sexual abuse, preferably of young girls. My agent and Holyoned’s lawyers have not made the amount of the deal public yet but I can assure you that it’s twice as sweet as that piker Patterson’s.

— UKL