Who Are the 15 Best Paid Authors?

Listed below are the top earning authors of 2011 according to an article recently published in Forbes magazine.

James Patterson:  $94 million
Stephen King:  $39 million

Young Stephen King

Janet Evanovich:  $33 million
John Grisham:  $26 million
Jeff Kinney:  $25 million
Bill O’Reilly:  $24 million
Nora Roberts:  $23 million
Danielle Steel:  $23 million
Suzanne Collins:  $20 million
Dean Koontz:  $19 million
J.K. Rowling:  $17 million
George R.R. Martin:  $15 million
Stephenie Meyer:  $14 million
Ken Follett:  $14 million
Rick Riordan:  $13 million

Flavorwire notes several interesting trends and stats about the list.

• Thriller and Young Adult (YA) writers dominate the list (9 of 15).
• Among the top fifteen, there are 9 men and 6 women.
• Everyone on the list is white.
• 10 of the top 15 are at least fifty years old.
• 14 of the authors write fiction (Bill O'Reilly writes "non-fiction" although he lives in a fantasy world).

Having thoroughly reviewed the works of the top-paid authors, I'll be scrapping my current novel to begin work on a story about a quirky teenage detective-spy who lives in a fantastic medieval land, wherein he uses his dragon to solve heinous international murder mysteries each day, before becoming a were-pire (trademark pending) and drinking the blood of adolescent British witches at night.