JK Rowling named world's highest-paid author by Forbes
JK Rowling will need to reserve a particularly large vault at Gringotts bank after a bumper year for the Harry Potter novelist magicked her back to the No 1 spot on Forbes’ list of the world’s highest-paid authors, almost a decade after she last topped it, the Guardian reports.
Forbes – which uses a mix of print, ebook and audio sales data, television and film earnings and expert industry opinion to come up with its list – estimates that Rowling earned $95m in the year to 31 May. This figure is the equivalent of more than $180 per minute.
The writer’s earnings have been boosted with the release of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a film set in the Harry Potter world for which she wrote the script, which was published in November.
Rowling, who last topped Forbes’ list in 2008, comes in this year $8m ahead of second-placed James Patterson, the thriller powerhouse who has headed the list for the last three years.
Both Rowling and Patterson are considerably larger earners than the third-placed writer, Wimpy Kid author Jeff Kinney, who Forbes says earned $21m over the last year. Dan Brown comes in fourth, according to Forbes, with earnings of $20m.
Horror superstar Stephen King comes in fifth place, legal supremo John Grisham and romantic suspense bestseller Nora Roberts in sixth, with romance author Danielle Steel and children’s writer Rick Riordan tying for 10th place.
George RR Martin, John Green and Veronica Roth, all of whom previously featured in the top 10, drop out this year – although Martin will likely shoulder his way back in again as soon as his new Game of Thrones novel hits the shelves.