a goldfish

james patterson

Rumours about James Patterson and his voracious appetites take on increasingly bizarre forms.

Patterson shifts more books than anyone on the planet (14 million copies in 2009, says the NYT).

His books straddle the thriller, YA and romance markets.

With his co-authors, he publishes 9 or more new titles a year.

If he didn’t invent this “studio” approach (it’s reminiscent of Rembrandt, Van Dyck, et al) he certainly practices it more successfully than anybody else..

But he always wants more:

When sales figures showed that he and John Grisham were running nearly neck and neck on the East Coast but that Grisham had a big lead out West, Patterson set his second thriller series, “The Women’s Murder Club,” about a group of women who solve murder mysteries, in San Francisco. (quoted from NYT article)

 When he heard that he was a key player on five of Hachette’s six imprints, he asked which one he was missing. Told it was the religious imprint, he said, “I can do that.”

Patterson’s aggressive branding and marketing supports books which millions happily devour. And he gives back, too, with his ReadKiddoRead platform to encourage literacy among the young.

Combining his unquenchable hunger for success with his intolerance of others’, however, it can surely only be a question of time before the headline James Patterson Swallowed My Goldfish – And the Bowl With It! appears.

Because Patterson doesn’t want to be the biggest fish in the bowl. He wants to ingest the whole bowl – gravel and plastic props included – into his insatiable maw!