Written by Jon Williams
First off, a happy belated birthday to the author, who turned 70 last week. As a librarian, you are no doubt aware of Patterson’s prolific nature and his constant presence on the bestseller lists. Have you ever wondered, though, exactly how he manages to put out so many books?
Patterson
published his first novel, The
Thomas Berryman Number, in 1976, before he turned 30, but it wasn’t an
easy road. He had a full-time job in advertising as he wrote it, and the novel
was rejected 31 times before it finally found a home. It won the 1977 Edgar
Award for Best First Novel by an American Author, but did not sell many copies.
Nevertheless, his career path was set. For the next twenty years, he continued
to work in advertising as he wrote novels, including two of his best known: Along
Came a Spider and Kiss
the Girls.
Those two
novels introduced detective Alex Cross, one of Patterson’s most lucrative
creations. As of now, there are 25 Cross
novels, the most recent of which, Cross
the Line, was published in November. The character has also made the
jump to the big screen: Kiss the Girls
(1997) and Along
Came a Spider (2001) starred Morgan Freeman; then, in 2013, the
character was rebooted in Alex
Cross, with Tyler Perry in the title role. That movie was based on
Patterson’s 2006 novel Cross,
and a second movie starring Perry is in production based on 2007’s Double Cross.
For twenty
years after The Thomas Berryman Number
was published, Patterson continued to work full-time as he wrote. He retired from
advertising in 1996 (although he continues to be involved in campaigns for his
own work). In those twenty years, he published eight novels. Following his
retirement, his publication pace really picked up. In 1996 alone, he released
three novels: Hide & Seek, Miracle on the 17th Green,
and Jack
& Jill. Since then, not a year has passed without the publication
of at least one Patterson book, and most years have featured several.
How does he
do it? For one thing, the writing in Patterson’s books is relatively simple,
streamlined for maximum readability. Secondly, he has turned his books into a
cottage industry, collaborating with a number of other writers to produce many
of them. This
2015 article in Vanity Fair
describes the process, in which Patterson provides his collaborator with an
extensive outline that details the plot from beginning to end, and then revises
and rewrites the manuscript to his specifications once it is fleshed out. Some
of his collaborators have included Richard
DiLallo, Mark
Sullivan, Michael
Ledwidge, Liza
Marklund, and Maxine
Paetro. Patterson’s most recent novel, Black
Book, published earlier this week, is a collaboration with David
Ellis.
Part of the
strategy behind Patterson’s writing style is his intention to appeal to an
audience that may not otherwise be interested in reading, as a way of promoting
literacy. When he noticed that his own son Jack was a reluctant reader,
Patterson decided to jump into the arena of young adult literature. Thus, in
2005, the Maximum
Ride series was born with the
first book, The
Angel Experiment. Now his involvement in the genre has grown to include
seven more series (including Middle
School, which led to the recent feature
film) as well as quite a few standalones. Lately, Patterson has turned his
attention to adults as well, launching a series of Bookshots:
short, exciting reads that can be easily consumed in one sitting (and although
he’s not as involved in the writing process, there’s also a line of Bookshots
Flames aimed at romance readers).
So that’s
the “secret” behind how James Patterson writes to many books. Needless to say,
such a large share of the market has made him quite a wealthy man, and he has
put a substantial amount of that money where his mouth is, donating large sums
to fund scholarships and literacy programs, in addition to launching ReadKiddoRead, a website devoted to
providing resources to parents in the effort to pass the joy of reading to
their kids. That being the case, there’s really not much else to say, other
than: Go, James, go! To share more of his impressive oeuvre with your patrons,
SmartBrowse his name on our website, and point them toward our collection of
his audiobooks on hoopla
digital.