Tag: James Patterson

Amazon Reveals Their Most Popular Authors!

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Amazon Author Rank

It took a while before I finally noticed that had Amazon started releasing some fun (and very useful) new information. It’s always been possible to check Amazon’s list of their best-selling Kindle ebooks (and print books). But now a new page Amazon also reveals their best-selling authors!

For a shortcut to Amazon’s new list, point your browser to
tinyurl.com/TopAmazonAuthors

It’s called “Amazon Author Rank,” and it’s updated every hour. (I was really touched to see Maya Angelou rising to the #1 last month, as the news spread about her death…) And each author’s name is followed by a list of their most popular books. It’s a great way to find new books to read — and to discover books that other readers enjoy.

I was really surprised by the variety on the list. Amazon’s most popular authors seemed to be writing in entirely different genres. James Patterson was #6 on Saturday morning — the author of mystery thrillers like Unlucky 13 (in a series he’s named “Women’s Murder Club.”) But right below him was Nora Roberts, the romance novelist, whose most popular books are the three Ireland-themed books in “The Cousins O’Dwyer Trilogy”.

And the #1 most-popular author on Amazon was the author of some great literary fiction. John Green wrote The Fault in Our Stars, which Time magazine called the best fiction book of 2012, and last month it was chosen by The Today Show as the pick for their virtual book club. It tells the story of two teenagers who both have cancer, “kindred spirits, sharing an irreverent sense of humor and immense charm,” (according to the book’s description at Amazon). Amazon applauds the book for shwoing them bravely facing two enormous challenges at the same time. “Watching them fall in love even as they face universal questions of the human condition–How will I be remembered? Does my life, and will my death, have meaning?–has a raw honesty that is deeply moving.

Of course, Amazon’s list also features Stephen King, whose most popular book hasn’t even been released yet! (When I checked on Saturday, Amazon was touting his new mystery, Mr. Mercedes — even though its release date was Wednesday, June 3rd!) And it’s nice to see that George R. R. Martin is still popular. His most popular book is the Game of Thrones box set — the whole Song of Ice and Fire Series (available on the Kindle for just $19.99)

I’m always looking for new books to read. And it looks like Amazon’s Author Rank is going to be a fun new way to find them!

Remember, for a shortcut to Amazon’s new list, point your browser to
tinyurl.com/TopAmazonAuthors

Amazon Announces Big Summer Kindle eBooks

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Amazon Summer Reading

It feels like the first week of summer, since all across America people just enjoyed a sunny three-day weekend. It’s the last holiday before summer, and it always reminds me that fun times are just around the corner. And whatever you do this summer, Amazon wants to make sure that your Kindle is freshly stocked with new Kindle ebooks. They’ve just created a special “Summer Reading” page — and it’s really fun to browse through Amazon’s list of Summer Reads!

For a shortcut to Amazon’s page, point your browser to
tinyurl.com/KindleSummer

There’s 1,890 books on the list — but Amazon’s broken them down into some interesting categories. There’s recommendations, “books to explore,” young adult beach reads, and “compelling true stories”. And even these categories are broken down further into subcategories. For example, the “Recommended Summer Reads” has an intriguing new section called “Blockbusters”. It’s a page where Amazon’s called out 20 of the most highly-anticipated of the summer — including some new books by some very popular authors!


Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King

This Tuesday, Stephen King releases a brand new mystery-thriller in which a killer taunts a retired detective who’s still trying to bring him to justice. This 448-page novel delivers all the rich details of Stephen King’s fiction, as well as a complicated game of cat-and-mouse. King actually flashes to the killer’s point of view, and delivers the narration in a “present tense” style which Booklist said makes the story “feel pretty darn fresh. Big, smashing climax, too.” And Amazon notes on the book’s page that Stephen King is already their #1 most popular author not just in the Horror category, but also for writing Contemporary Fiction!


Personal: A Jack Reacher Novel by Lee Child

Stephen King once called Jack Reacher “the coolest continuing series character now on offer,” and Reacher is also one of the most popular characters among Kindle readers. The character’s creator, Lee Child, became one of the first five authors to ever sell more than one million ebooks on the Kindle, and according to Amazon, he’s currently their #14 most-popular author. At the end of this summer, he’ll be releasing the newest Jack Reacher novel — and this time, it’s Personal. That’s the name of the book, and it follows an assassination attempt on the President of France. “Only one man could have done it. And Reacher is the one man who can find him…..”


Top Secret Twenty-One: A Stephanie Plum Novel by Janet Evanovich

It’s the 21st novel in this best-selling series of comic mysteries, and this one involves a popular used car dealer who’s out on bail — and missing. There’s dead ends and dead bodies, according to the book’s description at Amazon, and no clues for Joe Morelli (described as “the city’s hottest cop.”) Meanwhile, assassins are targetting bounty hunter Ranger (described as “Stephanie’s greatest temptation“), and somewhere in the mix is a crazy grandmother and a pack of feral Chihuahus. This book will finally be released on June 17th, but it’s already become Amazon’s top 10 best-selling books in their Humorous Fiction category! (And of course, Evanoich has also sold more than one million Kindle ebooks.)

If you just can’t wait until June 17th, Evanovich has also just released a new author co-authored with Lee Goldberg — a “Fox and O’Hare” mystery called The Chase!


Invisible by James Patterson and David Ellis

They thought she was crazy, but Emmy Dockery is convinced that hundreds of unsolved kidnappings and murders are connected. She’s an FBI researcher on a leave of absence — who’s now covering the walls of her bedroom with newspaper clippings about the crimes. Has she found the one piece of evidence that connects them all? More inexplicable murders are piling up in a book that Amazon describes as “James Patterson’s scariest, most chilling stand-alone thriller yet.”


Remember, for a shortcut to Amazon’s page, point your browser to
tinyurl.com/KindleSummer

New Books for Summer of 2014

Amazon Launches Special “Summer Reading” Page

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Tony Stark, the Invincible Iron Man Marvel comic book cover

This is fun. Amazon’s created a special web page for “Summer Reading”, offering suggestions for over a thousand different books (and Kindle ebooks). Memorial Day was the “unofficial” first day of summer in the U.S. — a three-day weekend where the weather was finally nice. And if you’re looking forward to more fun times — whether it’s vacations, holidays, or just weekends in the sun — it’s nice to know that Amazon’s assembled a nice collection of Kindle ebooks to read!

For a shortcut, point your web browser to tinyurl.com/KindleSummer

They’ve created categories like Beach Reads, Summer Blockbusters, and even Editor’s Picks for Summer Reading. (Plus special summer picks for teenagers, and for children.) Further down the page, Amazon’s also classified their summer reading choices by category, so you can browse for a particular kind of book. There’s fiction and literature, romance, science fiction and fantasy, and mystery/thriller/suspense books — plus books about entertainment, history, and of course, travel. There’s a category for “outdoors” books and books about sports, plus memoirs and biographies, books about business, and even some comic books. For example, Marvel’s famous “Wolverine” graphic novel by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller is available for any Kindle for just $5.94…

So what else is Amazon recommending as a summer read?


Guilty Wives – Free Preview: The First 23 Chapters
By James Patterson and David Ellis

That’s right, it’s free — 23 whole chapters from James Patterson’s 2012 novel Guilty Wives. (“No husbands allowed,” reads Amazon’s description of the book, as four friends embark on a luxurious vacation in Monte Carlo, leading inevitably to a complicated mystery around the question — what exactly happened last night?) Guilt Wives “is the ultimate indulgence,” Amazon writes, “the kind of nonstop joy-ride of excess, friendship, betrayal, and danger that only James Patterson can create.” The complete ebook is only $4.99 — but why not try the first 23 chapters for free?


Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls
By David Sedaris

Amazon named this collection of humorous essays as one of the best books of the month when it was released in April, gushing that Sedaris has “taken the snarky, sometimes crude, often hilarious, ultimately thought-provoking personal essay to the level of mastery.” You may remember Sedaris as the author of The SantaLand Diaries, or his other essay collections (which became New York Times best-sellers.) His collections of essays all have strange and ironic titles — like Me Talk Pretty One Day or When You Are Engulfed in Flames — and this book continues the tradition. “If you are a David Sedaris fan, any new book from the humorist is cause for celebration…” wrote USA Today, calling his newest book “quintessential Sedaris….There’s always a laugh-out-loud moment just around the corner!”


Invincible Iron Man
By Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca

For just $3.99, Amazon will deliver a 184-page collection of Iron Man comic books to any Kindle. (And you can even read the pages in color on your Kindle Fire tablet, or by using one of Amazon’s Kindle smartphone apps.) It’s a nice companion to Marvel’s summer blockbuster about billionaire Tony Stark and his flying suit of armor, and in print, this edition would cost $19.99. It collects seven full issues of the Invincible Iron Man comic book, and Amazon’s actually offering big discounts on seven different Iron Man collections!


A Dance with Dragons: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Five
By George R.R. Martin

I’ve actually read some of George R. R. Martin’s books, and they’re popular for a reason — they’re very well-written! They’ve also become a literary phenomenon, making Martin one of the first authors to sell over 1 million ebooks in the Kindle Store — and of course, Game of Thrones has now become a popular series on HBO. Amazon’s suggesting the books as the perfect summer read — and they’re a lot of fun, set in a medieval fantasy world with both royal political intrigue and the occasional dragon and ghost. Caution: the books are real page-turners, and once you start reading one of them, you’re very likely to continue on to read the rest of the series.

For a shortcut, point your web browser to tinyurl.com/KindleSummer

How James Patterson Sold 1,000,000 eBooks

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Author James Patterson

Wednesday Amazon announced that a second author had finally sold more than one million ebooks in Amazon’s Kindle store. (By Tuesday, 63-year-old James Patterson had racked up exactly 1,005,803 in ebook sales.) “[W]e look forward to celebrating the 2 million mark in the future,” Amazon announced in a statement, noting that Amazon’s customers “have been James Patterson fans far longer than ‘Kindle’ was a word in our vernacular.” But it’s not surprising that Patterson became the second author to reach this ebook milestone…

According to Wikipedia, Patterson has already written 56 different books which were best-sellers — which got him listed in the Guinness Book of World Records — so he could conceivably reach the million-book milestone simply by selling 20,000 copies of 50 different books. Sure enough, none of his books are on Amazon’s list of the top 20 best-selling ebooks right now, and in fact, there’s only one in the top 30 — “Don’t Blink” — even though it was released less than a month ago. Looking further, only one other Patterson book made the top 100 — “The Postcard Killers,” which he co-authored with Liza Marklund — even though it was released in mid-August. It’s safe to say that there’s still no single ebook that’s ever sold more than 1,000,000 copies.

But this only confirms the fact that Patterson is one of the most successful writers alive today. Last year Forbes magazine reported he’d sold the rights to his next 17 novels for an estimated $150 million. In less than three years, he’d then write (“or co-write”) eleven books for adults and six for young adults. Although there’s a minor controversy around that statistic — and a very funny story.

The author’s lawyer once told an audience that as soon as that figure was reported, he’d received a phone call from James Patterson, demanding “Where’s my $150 million?” USA Today reported the anecdote, then contacted Patterson themselves to get the real truth. The author replied that the $150 million number “isn’t close” to his actual deal. So was that figure too high, or was it too low? “I’m not saying,” Patterson replied!

It’s important to remember that Patterson’s obviously sold more than one million ebooks, since Amazon is only counting the sales in their own Kindle store. Presumably Barnes and Noble also sold a few Patterson ebooks to their Nook customers. (And in addition, Amazon probably sold some ebooks which were read on the iPad or the Blackberry — instead of on a Kindle.) The one million figure also doesn’t count any additional free editions that may have been given away as a promotion. Amazon specified in their press release that the sales figure “refers to paid Kindle book sales.”

What’s his secret? Exciting stories. The best way to celebrate an author is probably to take a look at their work. So here’s Amazon’s product description for his newest thriller, “Don’t Blink”.

“New York’s Lombardo’s Steak House is famous for three reasons — the menu, the clientele, and now, the gruesome murder of an infamous mob lawyer. Effortlessly, the assassin slips through the police’s fingers, and his absence sparks a blaze of accusations about who ordered the hit… Seated at a nearby table, reporter Nick Daniels is conducting a once-in-a-lifetime interview with a legendary baseball bad-boy. In the chaos, he accidentally captures a key piece of evidence that lands him in the middle of an all-out war between Italian and Russian mafia forces. NYPD captains, district attorneys, mayoral candidates, media kingpins, and one shockingly beautiful magazine editor are all pushing their own agendas — on both sides of the law…”

Are Authors Secretly Afraid of eBooks?

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The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson Kindle cover

My friend Patrick is a professional writer, and over the last 10 years he’s lovingly crafted several special and unusual stories which were eventually included in print-book collections. He’s settled into a cozy life of reading and writing, and he now eyes the Kindle very suspiciously. When Amazon announced their ebooks were outselling print books, Patrick was skeptical.

“Yeah, but those ebooks are all free,” he’d said quickly — maybe just a little too quickly. “All that proves is that Amazon gives away millions of free ebooks every day. And then they claim that that somehow proves their popularity over hardcover-format books…which you still have to pay for!” Patrick was very emphatic, and kept coming up with more challenges to the sales figures for ebooks. “Amazon’s statistics are rigged!” he continued. “Amazon deliberately leaves out paperback books for their calculations!”

I re-visited Amazon’s press release, which specifies that “Free Kindle books are excluded and if included would make the number even higher… Over the past month, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 180 Kindle books.” But I still had to wonder. Did Amazon artificially lower the number of print-edition books that were sold, in order to claim ebooks were enjoying a greater popularity? I love my Kindle, so I’d had to ask myself: did I latch onto that statistic to justify my own excitement about this new way of reading? Or had Patrick rejected the statistic to justify his own personal biases? Your perspective is probably different if you’ve spent the last 10 years selling your own writing in printed books…

But the day we had that conversation, I discovered the Kindle had reached a milestone. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo had sold one million copies — the first ebook ever to do so. That’s not a free ebook. It retails for $7.14, and was an international best-seller. They’re even making a movie adaptation starring Daniel Craig (the actor who plays James Bond) as protagonist Mikael Blomkvist, after considering George Clooney, Johnny Depp, and Brad Pitt. I’d like to ask the book’s author, Stieg Larsson, what he thought of his new success — but unfortunately he died nearly six years ago. Ironically, he never saw a Kindle, and probably never even read an ebook.

But it turns out that Stieg’s Millenium Trilogy isn’t the only ebook that’s enjoying huge (paid) sales. PC World notes that two more authors “are quickly closing in” on the Kindle’s “million club” — Twilight author Stephenie Meyer, and James Patterson. Two other authors have already passed the 500,000 mark for sales — Charlaine Harris and Nora Roberts. And PC World speculates that actually, the first ebook with one million downloads may have been the free edition of a Sherlock Holmes mystery by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

But best of all, there’s another author who’s joined them in selling their ebooks — Patrick. Even though he’s skeptical about Amazon’s sales figures, my friend discovered that digital publishing surprisingly easy, so he’s decided to give it a try.

It all reminds me of one of my all-time favorite stories about the Kindle. Author David Sedaris was appearing at a New York City bookstore to read from his new book, “When You Are Engulfed in Flames.” The audience enjoyed the reading, and lined up afterwards for the traditional book-signing ritual. But one man, waiting patiently, had a surprise for Mr. Sedaris. The author looked up to see a smiling man named Marty, who wanted the author to autograph…his Kindle.

Sedaris thought for a moment, then smiled and took up his pen, and added a clever inscription.

“This bespells doom.”


Though I see now that even the book that Sedaris was promoting is available on the Kindle.

And click here if you’d like to read Stieg Larsson’s million-selling ebook, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

Or buy The Complete Sherlock Holmes for 99 cents.