Secrets of 4 Rich Writers

Hi Reader,

How do rich writers do it?

Did they sign a Faustian pact to earn millions while other writers struggle to earn a living?

Here’s what I found out.

1 Don’t worry about rejection - JK Rowling is worth over a billion.

12 different publishers rejected the first Harry Potter book, which she wrote in local coffee shops while broke and in the middle of a painful divorce.

Eventually, a publisher took a chance on her and bought the series for £1.3m.

Even crypto doesn’t produce those returns.

Now, almost anything JK Rowling scribbles on sells (except her X posts and anti-trans rants).

One of her more recent books, a 31-page title measuring 1.6 x 2.4 inches, sold for over $180,000 at an auction.

The lesson here? Send more pitches, DMs, and connection requests.

And stay off X.

2 Keep to a strict publishing schedule - James Patterson is worth at least $800m.

Love or loathe him, Patterson has published over 200 novels and dozens of short stories. Patterson follows a strict formula for his thriller. He finishes between 12–14 books a year.

That’s more than one a month.

Patterson doesn’t spend much time rewriting or revising his drafts. I watched an interview with Patterson where he said he couldn’t care about flowery sentences or immaculate prose. The production line must go on.

He teams up with well-known authors like Maxine Paetro and (even US presidents) so he can tap into their audiences.

But perhaps his biggest secret is working with ghostwriters… and no, not just slapping Bill Clinton’s name on the book cover. He’ll knock out a plot outline and hand it over to a ghost author to write up.

I’m not a huge Patterson fan, but I know about creative output and marketing chops.

When building Become a Writer Today, I hired a team of writers to knock out dozens of weekly articles: my own production line. I also use outlines like Patterson for almost all my content.

3 Set time aside for deep work - Jonathan Franzen is worth at least $5m… I guess literary fiction doesn’t sell as much as genre fiction!

The American novelist behind Freedom and Strong Motion seeks solitude by disconnecting himself from the internet.

During a book tour for his 2012 novel Freedom, Jonathan Franzen told a journalist he wanted to write more daily.

In Franzen’s case, writing more sometimes means flowery sentences that go over an entire page (something that’d give Patterson a heart attack).

So, he turned on hardcore mode.

He physically removed his Wi-Fi card from his computer and permanently blocked his machine’s ethernet connection with Super Glue.

I didn’t destroy my laptop to write, but I sometimes work with Freedom.

(It’s an odd coincidence that this app shares the same name as one of Franzen’s books.)

Freedom cuts me off from the toxic Dopamine feed that is X and the alluring rabbit hole that is Instagram for most of the day.

4 Embrace research - Robert Greene is worth at least $7m.

He’s behind popular self-help books like Mastery and The 48 Laws of Power.

The latter is the second most banned book in US prisons.

Greene’s secret?

Inputs equal outputs.

Greene spends years researching his books. He keeps library index cards full of notes, ideas, and quotes, categorizing and organizing them.

That may explain why his books contain hundreds of primary and secondary sources, quotes, and studies.

Like Patterson, he also taps into other people's audience. He wrote The 50th Law with 50 Cent.

Authors like Greene inspired me to improve my research process. I created a course about how I organize my ideas. It’s called the Zettelkästen Method for writers. You can buy it here.

Write on,
Bryan Collins