Top 25 Richest Writers: Learn From Their Success

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Unlike the art of sculpting, where the artist’s piece of craft can be felt and pleasing in the beholder’s eye, the beauty of writing is captured in the reader’s mind. The writer’s work is a challenging task because the ability of a reader to grasp a literary work depends on several factors that may or may not be regulated. The richest writers in the world have paid their fair share of dues. 

Meet The Top 25 Richest Writers of The World

1. J.K. Rowling

British author J.K. Rowling is best popular for the Harry Potter series — the series has sold more than 500 million copies, securing Rowling’s place in the richest writers’ cub. The blockbuster movie franchise went viral around the world.

2. MacKenzie Scott

MacKenzie Scott is an American writer born in San Francisco, California, on the 7th of April, 1970. She is the writer of two books: the first, The Testing of Luther Albright, was published in 2005, and the next was Traps in 2013. Besides, these books aren’t the source of her huge wealth. She is the former wife of the Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos.

They met in 1992 and married the same year. After 25 years of marriage, they decided to get divorced in mid-2019. MacKenzie and her former husband had a peaceful separation that saw her get 25% of Bezos’ stake in Amazon. After settling their divorce, Scott signed the Giving Pledge, in which she would give away at least half her wealth to charity.

3. Elisabeth Badinter

Born in France on the 5th of March, 1944. Elisabeth Badinter is a famous feminist author, philosopher, and historian. Since she made public her first book titled L’Amour en plus in 1980, she has published dozens more, and her most notable books are her creative works on feminism: 1. The Myth of Motherhood 2. Wrong Turn 3.  Masculine Identity.

While she has so far written at least 30 books, a maximum of which were best-sellers. They aren’t the key source of her wealth. Bleustein-Blanchet was the father of Elisabeth Badinter. Thus, she received 19 million shares of the company from her father.

4. James Patterson

Bestseller James Patterson is popular for his thriller novels, including The Noise: A Thriller and The Jailhouse Lawyer. Patterson’s fictional hero, Alex Cross, arrests readers on the edge of their seats throughout each American author’s best-selling book.

5. Jim Davis

Jim Davis didn’t create all of his wealth from his published books. The Marion, Indiana native, born on the 28th of July 1945, is outlined as the creator of the Garfield and U.S. Acres comic strips. 

The cartoonist owns 1571 books to his name. While they are the major source of his wealth, the writer is also a screenwriter and producer.

Apart from the financial rewards, his career has earned many popular awards, including the Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement and the Best band from the National Cartoonist Society.

6. Matt Groening

Also an American cartoonist, he was born in Portland, Oregon, on the 15th of February 1954. Matt is also an animator, producer, and author, contributing to his rising career. He is currently estimated at $600 million, making him among the richest writers list. Groening is eminent as the creator of the Life in Hell comic strip, published weekly from 1977 to 2012.

His notable works are many to count, but reports have it that the chief source of his wealth is that he developed The Simpson, a popular animated series that has been running since 1989. Matt has also created other liked shows like Futurama and Disenchantment.

7. Candy Spelling

Candy Spelling is a theatre producer, writer and entrepreneur. She was born on the 20th of September 1945 in California and has published three books. Candy at Last and Stories from Candyland are the books from Candy. 

Candy also makes money from her various activities in the entertainment industry. She is the wife of Aaron Spelling, a prominent film and television producer who died in June 2006. Moreover, it is believed that he was worth $600 million at his death.

8. Paulo Coelho

Coelho’s world-popular novel, The Alchemist, was originally published in Portuguese and was later translated to English and 79 other languages. The best-selling writer is known for The Pilgrimage and Warrior of the Light: A Manual.

9. Stephen King

Stephen King is among the most established and the richest writers in the United States of America and the world. He specialised in horror, supernatural fiction, and similar genres. Well-known as the horror master, King has written at least 63 novels and five non-fiction books. That’s not all; he has published more than 200 short stories.

His career has earned him desirable literary awards that are just too many to count, including:

• The Living Legend Award 
•  The Lifetime Achievement Award 
•  Grand Master Award from  Horror Convention. 

10. Danielle Steel

Danielle published her first novel titled Going Home in 1972 and has been anxious about writing since then. Praised for her romance novels, the American writer has written 190 books. 

She is one of the bestselling writers of all time, as well as one of the richest book authors in the world.

Several reports claim her books have sold more than 800 million copies worldwide. You will get her work in at least 43 different languages.

11. Nora Roberts

With bestsellers like Playing the Odds and The Liar, Nora Roberts’s romance novels were trending for 176 weeks at the number one slot on the New York Times bestseller list.

12. John Grisham

He is also one of the richest writers in the world; Michael Crichton was born in Jonesboro on the 8th of February 1955. He bagged a Doctor of Law from Mississippi State University. After that, he practised criminal law for ten years and served as a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives. 

While in office, he started to write his first novel, A Time to Kill, published in June 1989. Since then, Grisham has published so many novels, children’s books, and a few short stories and non-fiction. Among his full writeups, 28 works became the number one bestsellers, and over 300 million copies of books were sold.

13. Grant Cardone

Grant Cardone is an entrepreneur, speaker, writer and sales trainer with high experience in the auto and real estate industries. Often celebrated as a real estate mogul. The CEO of Cardone Capital and Cardon Enterprises also founded The 10X Growth Conference, the world’s largest business and entrepreneur conference.

So, a large portion of his massive wealth came from his businesses, but he has earned money from the many books he has published. 

14. Pleasant T. Rowland

Pleasant Thiele Rowland is an American writer, educator, reporter, and entrepreneur. She has published multiple children’s textbooks since she rejected being a news reporter and anchor to start a career in the field.

While her books have contributed significantly to her wealth, which is currently estimated at $355 million, and came from her American Girl doll company. 

However, her career as a textbook writer made her a millionaire. 

15. Kenneth Copeland

Kenneth Copeland has written dozens of books and resources read across the globe, but he didn’t plan to become an author. The American televangelist was born in Lubbock on the 6th of December, 1936. 

Besides, he was raised near the United States Army Air Forces airfield in West Texas, which convinced him to become a pilot. He also practised a career as a recording artist for a while before planning to devote himself to ministry work. 

16. Barbara Taylor Bradford

Barbara Taylor Bradford is a British-American novelist and one of the richest book writers in the world. Married to Robert Bradford, a well-known film producer. 

She published her first novel, titled A Woman of Substance, in 1979, and it quickly became a bestseller with 30 million copies sold worldwide. 

Barbara has written about 35 novels, all of which are best-sellers. It is said that each book has sold over 92 million copies.

17. Olivia Harrison

Olivia Harrison is an author and film producer. Still, she is mostly known as the wife of the late famous English entertainer, George Harrison. Olivia has published various books as a writer, but they are not the key source of her wealth. 

Her journey as a film producer has also been financially rewarding. She arranged the Concert for George tribute in November 2002, and the film won the Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video. 

Olivia co-produced the 2011 documentary film George Harrison: Living in the Material World. 

18. Nigel Blackwell

Nigel Blackwell is also one of the richest writers in the world. The English writer’s writing range from humour and comedy to thrillers. As extracted from his site, he is currently working on some thriller short stories on supernatural and paranormal elements. 

Blackwell is the writer of Paris Love Match, published in April 2013. However, his most outstanding work is the Jess Kimball series which he partnered with Diane Capri to write.

Like other writers on this list, Nigel has earned good money from his book. Although Nigel is not the most accomplished writer out there, he is one of the richest in the field. 

19. Dave Ramsey

Dave Ramsey has multiple income sources, though he has made good money from his books. He has published about 30 distinct works. His most popular book is “The Total Money Makeover- A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness”. 

The personal finance book was first published in 2003, and other liked books include Financial Peace Revisited and EntreLeadership: Twenty Years of Practical Business Wisdom from the Trenches.

20. Dean Koontz

Dean Koontz’s body of work has at least 105 novels, several novellas, and collections of short stories. This writer from Everett, Pennsylvania, has sold more than 450 million copies of his books. Some of his notable works are 1. Lightning 2. Hideaway 3. Watchers 4. Intensity 5. Phantoms 6. The Face of Fear. Nonetheless, he is mostly known for the Odd Thomas series, a New York Times Bestseller styled into a 2013 American supernatural mystery thriller film of the same name.

21. Jeffrey Archer

Jeffrey Archer is one of the richest book authors who created their wealth mostly from their books. Interestingly, writing was not the first career option of the English novelist renowned across the globe. Jeffrey Howard Archer allocate most of his early life at Weston-super-Mare. After college, he entailed a career in politics and soon became a Member of Parliament. But then, a financial scandal strained him out of politics, and he had to turn to writing in a seeking to avoid bankruptcy.

22. R.L Stine

 The American novelist Jovial Bob Stine has been writing since he graduated in English from Ohio State University in 1965. While in college, he offered to be the editor of a humour magazine, The Sundial. 

After his graduation, he relocated to New York City to start writing. He soon created a unique niche for himself as a writer of children’s horror fiction novels.

As Stine is also a screenwriter and television producer, it is not hard to see how he is one of the richest writers in the world.

23. Dan Brown

Dan Brown is added as the most successful and richest book writer in the world at the moment.

The start of his career as a writer can be traced to 1993, when he was on vacation in Tahiti. As the story travels, Daniel Gerhard Brown read The Doomsday Conspiracy during their vacation, and the thriller novel by the late Sidney Sheldon dazzled him to become a writer. By 1996, he dumped being a teacher to focus on writing.

24. David Oyedepo

David Oyedepo likely wouldn’t have had anything to do with writing if he wasn’t a priest. He is the founder of Living Faith Church Worldwide. Born into a mixed religious belief with a Muslim father and a Christian mother, David was fostered by his grandmother, who thrilled and nurtured his passion for the Christian faith.

25. George R. R. Martin

George R. R. Martin isn’t only one of the richest book writers and one of the most influential people in the world. His works are mostly influenced by science fiction, horror, and fantasy. Martin has written dozens of works but is mostly known for his epic fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire. The book reformed into the famous HBO series, Game of Thrones, which ran from 2011 to 2019.

Can Writers become rich? 

Writing is one of the most creative careers to succeed and make millions, as many draining years distributing scripts to publishers and getting rejected. Also, the biggest booksellers didn’t compose a book, sold millions of copies, relaxed, and started living off luxuries. 

Earnings come in different ways if aspirant writers wish to become a millionaire. Many writers make money from the bond they build with their books. For instance, writers like J.K. Rowling made more money from TV and film adaption of their books than the actual sales. Therefore, once you develop a relationship with your readers, you will likely have something huge to earn from. 

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