Writing cheques

Last week Forbes announced the top 10 earning authors of the year. 

1. James Patterson ($70 million) JPatz has 17 books due out before 2012 and does it all long hand. He's never owned a computer.
2. Stephenie Meyer ($40 million) Vampires bla bla bla. Bella and Edward bla bla bla. 

3. Stephen King ($34 million) He's still got it. $8 million was from the sale of his back catalogue and the rest was from his latest novel, Under the Dome.

4. Danielle Steel ($32 million) This includes the $1 million settlement from her former assistant, who was convicted of embezzling $760,000 of Danielle's cash. 

5. Ken Follett ($20 million) When The Times of London asked its readers to vote for the greatest novels of the last 60 years, Follett's The Pillars of the Earth came in at No. 2 (just behind To Kill a Mockingbird). 

6. Dean Koontz ($18 million) who cares about his books? Look at his shiny hair.

7. Janet Evanovich ($16 million) Janet works hard for the money. Seven days a week. No breaks.

8. John Grisham ($15 million) Has just released a tween book and is clearly trying to jump on the Twilight express. All aboard!

9. Nicholas Sparks ($14 million) I don't know how many more ways he can write The Notebook?

10. JK Rowling ($10 million) The Harry Potter series made Rowling the world's first author-billionaire. 

So I guess 10 mill is a pretty slow year for her.

All the figures and some of the fun facts plagerised from Forbes.com