J.K. Rowling, who is the creator of famous book Harry Potter, earned more than £3 million a week last year. Her huge earnings proved that she is considered as the world’s highest paid author, according to a list compiled by Forbes magazine.
The “Harry Potter” author netted around £170 million last year, bringing her total fortune to more than £560 million. Her income is more than the combined annual earnings of the nine other best-selling writers on the list, including James Patterson (£26.7 million), Stephen King (£24 million) and Tom Clancy (£18.7 million).
J.K. Rowling’s status as the world’s highest paid author reflects the famous status of her novels, which have sold more than 375 million copies and been adapted for the big screen. Since then each new installment of wizardry has created a shopping frenzy, with bleary-eyed children and adults camping outside stores across the world to snap up a copy.
Lacey Rose, who compiled the Forbes list, revealed that the adventures of JK Rowling’s boy wizard “took the publishing by storm” 10 years ago, saying: “Once a single mother on welfare, Rowling can now claim best-selling status thanks to her Harry Potter franchise. Over on the big screen, her Potter franchise has already generated £2.5 billion at the worldwide box office and she still has three more flicks to come.”
She added: “While the publishing industry has struggled to come up with a ‘happily ever after” storyline in recent years, there’s still plenty of money to be made in the business of books. Sure it isn’t the success it once was – blame it on the economy, the web and the big-box stores – but the publishing industry’s top earners still manage to turn pages of prose into piles of cash.”
J.K. Rowling, who is a personal friend of Gordon Brown, recently courted controversy by donating £1 million to the Labor party.
She said that she was motivated by Labor’s record on child poverty and was opposed to David Cameron’s plan to give tax breaks to married couples.
Here is the list of Forbes’ top 10 authors and their earnings between June 1, 2007, and June 1, 2008
1. J K Rowling £160m
2. James Patterson £26.7m
3. Stephen King £24m
4. Tom Clancy £18.7m
5. Danielle Steel £16m
6. John Grisham £13m
Dean Koontz £13m
8 Ken Follett £10.6m
9 Janet Evanovich £9m
10 Nicholas Sparks £8.5m