About James Patterson
James Patterson’s was born in Newburgh, New York to a teacher and an insurance executive in 1947. His parents, with well paying jobs, were able to provide a comfortable home for him and his three younger sisters.
Not much is known about his early life. He formerly worked for J. Walter Thompson as a chairman and in the early part of the 1990’s, he was able to come up with that well known slogan “Toys R Us Kid”. Not long after James Patterson found success with “Along Came a Spider”, he decided to retire from the firm and devote all of his time to writing. The novels that feature his character named Alex Cross are some of the most popular books among his readers and the best selling detective books for the past decade. James Patterson has written over 50 novels in the 33 years since he started writing.
During the year of 2007, one out every 15 hardcover books sold was one that was written by James Patterson – which is estimated to be approximately 16 million books just in North America. According to an article in Forbes magazine, James Patterson brought in about $50 million from June 2007 to the following June, and that placed him in second place on the best paid authors list in the world. James Patterson’s books have sold approximately 150 million copies around the world. He has won numerous awards, including the BCA Mystery Guild’s Thriller of the Year, the International Thriller of the Year award, and the Edgar Award. He was the first author to have titles in the number one spot simultaneously on both the adult and children’s bestsellers lists for the New York Times, as well as having two books on the top ten list on NovelTracker. He is currently holding the New York Time’s list record with having 45 best sellers on their list.
James Patterson is also known for sharing his spotlight with several assorted co-authors, such as Andrew Gross, Peter Dejonge and Maxine Paetro. One of the reasons that he says he does this is because when he collaborates with other authors he gets interesting and new ideas to his own stories. Currently he is collaborating with Liza Marlund, a Swedish mystery author, and their book is to be released in 2010. He recently signed a deal to either co-write or write 6 books for young adults and 11 books for adults by the finish of 2012.
In 2005, he founded something known as the James Patterson PageTurner Awards and pledges to give away more than $600K personally in order to get people to foster a love for books and reading. The awards were delayed in 200 9so that he could focus on another initiative to help teachers, librarians and parents to find the best books for their children.
James Patterson books have been enjoyed by people of all ages and will continue to have a large following as long as he keeps writing and long after.
Learn more at the James Patterson website. | 
