You may not rate James Patterson, author of thriller novels, very high on quality but you have to rate him very high on quantity. He has never been acclaimed for producing what is called “high literature”. His thriller novels are mostly about a psychologist named Alex Cross and follows the basic best seller formula in the tradition of Dan Brown. But he has become the leader now and can set a trend.

James Patterson is far more prolific than his contemporaries. He has published 65 novels in his 33 year career and is still counting. The enormous body of work that he has produced puts him in a position to be the driving force behind the e-book revolution. The Hachette Book Group, his publishing company claims that his novels have now moved 1.14 million copies in electronic form making him the first author to sell over 1 million e-copies of his books.

We were unable to get a third party certification for the record as there are no independent monitors of e-book sales. Hachette Books has relied on their own figures and have compared them with the sales numbers of other authors who have made their works available in the form of e-books. There are some other best selling authors who are likely to cross the 1 million mark very soon. We must admit that we were shocked with the fact that James Patterson was not beaten to the punch by more geek-friendly authors like Stephen King or Douglas Brown.

Via: LA Times