Friday, February 08, 2008

The Ubiquitous Patterson

I was fortunate to finally meet author James Patterson last summer, when during ThrillerFest in New York City, he was presented the International Thriller Writers’ ThrillerMaster Award. Thanks to the debut of that ABC-TV series Women’s Murder Club, based on Patterson’s adult fiction, and his teen book series Maximum Ride, this Florida wordsmith seems to be a larger presence than ever. And now, says The Bookseller, he is “looking to create computer games based on his novels.”
Patterson is quoted saying that the project will appeal to people who do not currently play computer games: “What I love about this project is the chance to widen the boundaries of what people can do on the small screen, sort of like what the Wii is accomplishing. We’re going to give people who don’t want to shoot things ... Who prefer to use their brains ... A chance to solve a really good mystery. This will open up a whole new arena to a lot of people who don’t play games now.”
The Guardian has more on Patterson’s game-plotting project here.

It would appear that Random House UK’s high-stakes gamble last summer to filch Patterson away from British publisher Headline is paying dividends. The Guardian reports today that Patterson has become the #1 literary star in the UK:
James Patterson has knocked [children’s book writer] Jacqueline Wilson off her perch as the author most-borrowed from British libraries, with more than 1.5m copies of his thrillers issued between July 2006 and June 2007.

He becomes only the third author ever to have claimed top spot, Wilson having taken over in 2004 from Catherine Cookson, who had reigned supreme since records were first published in 1982.

Children’s author Daisy Meadows, and romantic novelists Josephine Cox and Nora Roberts join Patterson and Wilson in achieving more than 1m loans.
Click here to see who else’s books are being picked up most often in British libraries these days. (Hint: One of the authors is Scottish and recently concluded his signature series.) With all of these marketing efforts already in the works, can it really be long before we’re offered Alex Cross aftershave?

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