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The highest paid author of detective thrillers is James Patterson, who earned 84 million dollars in 2010.

Forbes magazine has published the list of highest-paid writers in the world. The author of detective thrillers James Patterson topped the rating.

Over the past year he earned $ 84 million – far more than the previous year (70 million).

Forbes rating is based on data provided by the largest research company in the book industry Nielsen BookScan, the main industry magazine Publishers Weekly, which receives information about annual sales, as well as information from the publishers and literary agents.

According to the editors of Forbes, the sales of the most expensive product in the book market – hardcover editions, intended for adult readers fell by 23% for the first six months of 2011 (for last year by 5.1%).

Under these circumstances, e-books, multimedia, and the franchise, for young people, are becoming increasingly important. An example of successful adaptation to the new realities of the market is shown by James Patterson.

In 2009, he signed a contract for 17 books with his publisher, Hachette Book Group.

Patterson, who heads a group of co-sponsors, has already published ten of them. In addition, twenty of his works, with a circulation of more than 10 million copies, hit lists of bestsellers of Publishers Weekly.

Patterson got another 750 thousand dollars for selling e-books.

The shift towards a teenage audience played an important role in Patterson’s success – a new series of franchises “Maximum Ride” and “Witch & Wizard” were sold in the millions copies for a year.

The queen of youth literature is Stephenie Meyer, despite a significant decline in revenues compared with last year ($ 41 million in 2010, $ 21 million in 2011).

A specialist in romance Danielle Steele took the second place in Forbes ranking, Stephen King got the third position just like last year.

The author of Harry Potter JK Rowling was not included in the top ten – with her 5 million dollars in revenue she takes only 13th place in the list.

Top 10 best-paid authors – Forbes:

1. James Patterson – $ 84 million;

2. Danielle Steel – $ 35 million;

3. Stephen King – $ 28 million;

4. Janet Evanovich – $ 22 million;

5. Stephenie Meyer – $ 21 million;

6. Rick Riordan – $ 21 million;

7. Dean Koontz – $ 19 million;

8. John Grisham – $ 18 million;

9. Jeff Kinney – $ 17 million;

10. Nicholas Sparks – $ 16 million.

Recall, the Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov was filled with indignation because of high cost of books during his visit to Kyiv international book exhibition.