Forbes Highest Earning Authors of 2016

Becoming an author, a proper, paid for your work author is a hard thing to do. In this modern era of self publishing and Indie authorship we readers are swamped with freebies and bargains. We are able to flit between authors and feed our need for literature without spending much at all and so inevitably, for an author to earn even a living wage is becoming harder and harder to do.

It does appear though, that once you do achieve success, that success is monumental and rather than slowly building up a following, if your book is picked up by someone influential, or it receives excellent reviews on social media, you can be catapulted from obscurity to world wide recognition and an astronomical income in a relatively short time period.

Forbes has just released its annual richest lists which they compile from examining print, eBook and audio-book sales from Nielsen BookScan figures then including TV and movie earnings and talking to authors, agents, publishers and other experts and other sundries which are obtained from talking with authors and other experts in the literary field. Taken from the time period between June 2015 to June 2016 the figures given are pretax.

This year has seen another drop in incomes for even the most successful authors and this has been attributed to the continuing drop in adult American readers with figures from a Pew Research study suggesting a 7% drop in the last four years, although the large number of book to film adaptations has definitely helped with the sale of some hugely successful titles such as The Girl on the Train and Me Before You which seem to be the literary phenomenons of this year.

Here we have the top ten Highest Earning Authors of 2016 and their estimated incomes according to Forbes.

.1.

James Patterson – $95 million

Along with his team of co authors, James Patterson has published a dozen new titles in the last twelve months and with such a loyal following it is no surprise that yet again, he tops the richest earner list.

.2.

Jeff Kinney – $19.5 million

Lagging behind by a long distance is Wimpy Kid creator Jeff Kinney. With a global tour in 2015 and regular new releases, Kinney is a firm favourite with younger readers.

.3.

J.K Rowling – $19 million

It may have been almost a decade since the Potter saga came to an end but with J.K’s forays into adult fiction and the income from several Potter theme parks it seems that Jo can do no wrong.

.4.

John Grisham – $18 million

With dozens of titles to his name and regular new releases it is no surprise to see this much loved author of nailbitingly good legal thrillers in the top five.

.5.

Stephen King – $15 million

The King of horror maintains his spot as one of the best selling authors ever with two new books released so far this year and a couple of collaborations with his sons in the pipeline helping to bring in a few million in the last year.

.6.

Danielle Steel – $15 million

With 129 books to her name Danielle Steel could happily retire from writing, but then why would she with so many excellent novels still to be written.

.7.

Nora Roberts – $15 million

With an average of five new novels published every single year the slump in sales hasn’t bothered Nora too much and she remains very much in the top ten high earners for 2016.

.8.

E.L James – $14 million

Those shades of grey are still bringing n the green for fan fiction author come good E.L James. With the film revenue and the release of Grey 2015/16 has been a very healthy twelve months indeed.

.9.

Veronica Roth – $10 million

A drop of $15 million against last year as the hype over her Allegient series and falling box office sales affect her annual income but as she’s only 28, Veronica has plenty of time to pick herself back up and climb back up the list.