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| Michael Wolff | |
Michael Wolff, author of Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, became the first nonfiction writer in 11 years to make Forbes magazine's Highest-Paid Authors list, which was topped by James Patterson, who regained the title from second-place J.K. Rowling. Forbes reported that "the world's 11 highest-paid authors sold 24.5 million print books combined in the U.S. during our scoring period, logging $283 million." Missing from this year's list is The Girl on the Train author Paula Hawkins, who first made the rankings in 2016.
To formulate the rankings, Forbes looked at "all earnings estimates from June 1, 2017, through June 1, 2018. Figures are pretax; fees for agents, managers and lawyers are not deducted. Earnings estimates are based on data from NPD BookScan and Box Office Mojo, as well as interviews with industry insiders, including some of the authors themselves." This year's top-earning authors are:
1. James Patterson ($86 million)
2. J.K. Rowling ($54 million)
3. Stephen King ($27 million)
4. John Grisham ($21 million)
5. Jeff Kinney ($18.5 million)
5. Dan Brown ($18.5 million)
7. Michael Wolff ($13 million)
8. Danielle Steel ($12 million)
8. Nora Roberts ($12 million)
10. Rick Riordan ($10.5 million)
10. E.L James ($10.5 million)