James Patterson Inc: A look at the author who outsells King & Grisham | Hacker News Reader

James Patterson Inc: A look at the author who outsells King & Grisham

nytimes.com

40 pointsadamhowell33 comments

Robert Kiyosaki (rich dad poor dad) has a story where he's interviewed about his book by journalist who's an excellent writer, and having trouble breaking in. He advises her to take a copy writing course, to help her sell her work. She objects that she became took journalism so she wouldn't have to be a saleswoman. He points to his book jacket's blurb which says "best selling". "It doesn't say best writing," he explains. "You are an excellent writer; I'm terrible at writing, but good at selling." "It's not fair," she sulks.

niche marketing: Instead of simply going to the biggest book-buying markets, he focused his early tours and advertising efforts on cities where his books were selling best: like a politician aspiring to higher office, he was shoring up his base.

pragmatism: I’m less interested in sentences now and more interested in stories.

kill your darlings: “I don’t believe in showing off,” Patterson says of his writing. “Showing off can get in the way of a good story.” (Samuel Johnson: Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.)

a marketing genius who has cynically maneuvered his way to best-sellerdom by writing remedial novels that pander to the public’s basest instincts. Sounds pretty accurate.

If writing is intended to match the human story-processing system, analogously to how image compression attempts to match human visual system, then the popularity of writing (aside from sales due to marketing) is a measure of its match to what an ideal story really is (i.e. how humans perceive stories). In this view, a story is not an end in itself, but an attempt to communicate; in contrast, "literature" has become its own subject. It is solipsistic. Therefore, it is possible that this guy's writing will become studied in the future (as his editor said of Dickens), because it is based on reality outside of itself.

Just remember that when you go over the mountain to work in the morning, you’ve got to be singing Yeah, I agree with the article's followup on this, that it's not clear that he loves what he does for its own sake, or because he's successful at it. I think he must deeply enjoy it in some sense, because he has tremendous energy for it. Or perhaps he enjoys it because he gives it energy and meaning? It reminds me of the conflicting advice posted on HN, about "do what you love" vs. "love what you do". The latter is certainly essential, for even in loving what you do, some bits of it you won't love and you need to do them anyway. And, as apes, we enjoy dominant status for its own sake (aka "success"), regardless of how we got there. I think enjoying how we get there does matter; but it doesn't have to be entirely for its own sake.

I love these long nyt articles.

I love these long nyt articles.

Me too, but if everyone followed Mr Kiyosaki's (sincere and wise) advice, then we wouldn't get them, viz. Seth Godin's capsule-blogging approach of 'one good idea presented in 3 quick paragraphs'.

I found that horrifying. All I could think of while reading the article was what if this model takes off? Publishing houses put books together by hiring one meta-author to write an outline for a book, then bid out the actual writing to junior authors. The publishing houses would own the rights to the characters, series, and future books. When a particular series takes off, their only expense is hiring junior authors to "fill in the blanks" on future novels. Sounds immensely more profitable for publishing houses for the current model. Why would a publishing house develop individual authors if the new meta model is so much more profitable?

As interesting as I found the business model, if the end product is anything like Patterson's novels, I fear for the book industry. Would Harry Potter have been written by a down-on-her-luck JK Rowling if she could have gotten work as a ghost author for a publishing house? I could see this being a good thing, but I like my books and the direction scares me.

I see your point, but this isn't really new, especially in the teen and young adult markets:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratemeyer_Syndicate

Additionally, I think recent developments mean that more and more authors will skip the publisher entirely and do it themselves. Finally, the idealistic (and probably somewhat naive) part of me still believes that there will always be a market for great content. There will always be publishers and authors who want to create great stuff and do so, even if the market isn't apparent. Yes, this means that the blockbusters will be mostly shit, but every now and then, there will be a blockbuster that's truly great. Look at the TV, movie, and music industries now for examples of what I'm talking about.

This already happens pretty often with low budget sci fi and other genre fiction. Publishers have a very specific template for a type of story and they bid it out to unknown authors.

Maybe JK Rowling didn't know about this option, but obviously she had her own story she wanted to tell. Ghost authors are not given much freedom in character design or plot events. The plots are literally formulaic.

I agree completely, I think that one should value their readership enough to not only entertain them but improve their mind by showing them new perspectives, teaching them things, exposing them to new ideas, etc.... I wonder how good his books are.

Also note, that his outline can be up to 50 pages triple spaced -- so he writes down 17 pages or so, and then says fill it up. I wonder if his stories would be better as short stories, instead of novels.

The author doesn't even need to be alive for that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Sheldon%27s_Mistress_of_...

Or exist, in the case of the Stratemeyer Syndicate.

I think this model, properly handled, benefits new authors as much as it benefits publishers. Instead of spending their days splicing cables or selling insurance, they have a "day job" that furthers their careers.

This happens already quite often.

Here's an ad by Patterson:

http://www.infomarketingblog.com/write/

And here's an interview with someone who responded to that ad, worked at JWT, and also decided to start writing novels, instead:

http://www.infomarketingblog.com/mystery-writer-interview/

That interview showed me that "Die Hard" resurrected the dead metaphor of "diehard". This is a powerful way to capture attention. I might also watch "Lethal Weapon", for it's 3/3min dialog/action structure (and to observe how engaged/entertained I am).

Very interesting that he didn't become a full-time author until 20 years after his book was published. I'm always interested in how successful people became that way.

Mr. Patterson was born in 1947, published his first book at 29 years old (1976) and didn't become a full time writer until 49 years old (1996). He's been writing an average of 2 novels per year since then (!) and is getting more prolific with age. Considering that some people never get around to "finishing their novel", I find these data points amazing.

What are you doing today that will be news worthy 20 years from now?

> What are you doing today that will be news worthy 20 years from now?

Writing a novel. :)

Seriously though; for every successful writer there are 10's of failed ones. Most get "found" some time after they are first published (fad's like Harry Potter et al tend to be exceptions).

If you have a reasonable amount of writing talent and the spare time to put it down into a book then it's worth doing as a bet against being noticed at some time in the future.

I believe that there is a "heuristic" to become a successful fiction author, but it is not easy at all. Just write books (not just one) and keep marketing them until you find an audience. Notice that this is based on the idea that for every author there is always an audience, the problem is finding it.

Once your audience knows about you, they will buy more and more of your books (that is why you need to have several books in order to make money this way).

The big problem is that most authors will just stop before writing even the first book. Or, after the first or second book, if they don't find success, they will stop altogether -- they never achieve the critical point after which they are successful.

It is not different from writing non-fiction and market to a niche, but it takes much more effort, because readers in fiction are not so easy to reach as in non-fiction.

> Writing a novel. :)

Ditto. I've worked in writing, and I've been trying to hone my writing skills with novels. Consistency is a key issue in writing. My goal in life is to publish a novel, not a short story so I never practised short stories. I'm now looking to sell some short stories to qualify for SFWA while I'm working on the book I hope is my debut.

I'm 21 and I've worked in writing since ~16. I fail to see how I can become a successful author unless I try to get myself out there. Perhaps my work will click and I'll hit the big time, however that's an aim for later in the game.

Im 23 and mine has been on/off writing since about 18. Mostly I've written short ideas/chapters and it's only recently they became a cohesive plot :)

Got some ideas for short stories - but writing them has always eluded me!

Good copywriting advice:

“I have a saying,” Patterson told me. “If you want to write for yourself, get a diary. If you want to write for a few friends, get a blog. But if you want to write for a lot of people, think about them a little bit. What do they like? What are their needs? A lot of people in this country go through their days numb. They need to be entertained. They need to feel something.”

"A lot of people in this country go through their days numb."

Man, we rock at treating the symptom. I really admire anyone who can help people avoid that numb feeling to begin with.

Like who? Are there good examples of people who have done this on a mass scale AND done more than offer empty hope and unfulfilled promises to do so (politicians)?

It depends on what problem you are talking about. Something as general as 'numbness', has a multitude of specific underlying causes; to treat those causes you need specific solutions. If you believe that psychotherapy can be effective in treating underlying causes, as I do, than individuals who have helped develop different specific psychotherapy methods have treated (directly & indirectly) causes on a mass scale.

These two guys come to mind:

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com

http://www.holtgws.com

Single Page: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/magazine/24patterson-t.htm...

I know this is not the place for this, but I really wish submitters would start submitting the one-page articles as the standard.

Yeah, sorry, I realized my mistake too late. I was going to delete it and resubmit but it already had a few points.

Being able to edit a URL for 15 minutes after submitting would probably help.

You can edit it (I just tested it - don't know how long it's editable though).

When I edit I can only update the title, not the URL.

(Which makes sense, b/c someone could submit something that gets voted to the frontpage and then change it to a spam link, etc. But sometimes it's inconvenient.)

Sorry, you're right of course.

Terrible writer, but interesting and successful business model, including co-writing with many authors.

His skill when it comes to writing may not actually be that relevant. These days, people consume stories - and entertainment in general - in lots of different forms: novels, newspaper articles, blog posts, tv series, video games, forum threads and even tweets. Patterson may not be a master artisan when it comes to prose, but he's clearly dedicated to the goal of giving people interesting stories in an accessible format. Perhaps the use of co-authors is his way of addressing deficiencies in his own abilities?

at least when it comes to video games, one's ability to write prose is not a good indicator of an ability to tell interesting stories. I've personally seen talented writers work hard to deliver an ultimately boring game story while non-writers with a knack for plotting and creative thinking can come out of left field with a game like Silent Hill 2 (widely recognized for a gripping and unorthodox plot).

Agreed. One of my current fav authors - Raymond Feist - isn't a particularly fine writer - but I really like his stories (especially the earlier ones) and some of the characters (particularly the quirky ones) are utterly engaging.

At the end of the day a lot of what he writes is a bit awkward (and even weak at times) but you dont often notice.

On a similar token, a lot of "high literature" looks terrible when you consider the story being told. My latest example is Virginia Woolf's "The Wave". While it is a beautiful book, the story couldn't be more boring.

That page has two giant animated Google Search ads and one shows someone typing "impress a french girl." Does Google have a macho sexually repressed Asperger's marketing team too? I think I dislike Google a little more today because of that ad.

Google is running scared in oblong circles and they don't know what to do about it.

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