The elite group of authors who sell 100 million books – or more

By Karen Heller

The Washington Post

Reading, contrary to previous reports, is not dead. In fact, it’s very far from it.

Brazilian author Paulo Coelho has legions of readers. His best-known book, “The Alchemist,” the story of a young Andalusian shepherd on a personal quest, spent almost eight years — two presidential election cycles — on the bestseller lists. It was translated into 81 languages.

But “The Alchemist” is only one of Coelho’s more than 30 works. “The Spy” came out in November. All told, the writer has sold an estimated 350 million books.

Yes, books, those dead-tree, multi-page objects that people were supposed to have long ago abandoned for screens large and small.

And Coelho has company.

Horror master Stephen King, with more than 50 titles, has also sold an estimated 350 million books. Dan Brown has millions of readers as well. “The Da Vinci Code” alone sold 80 million copies.

Books like John Grisham’s “The Whistler,” now topping bestseller lists, and King’s “End of Watch” will no doubt be stacked under Christmas trees nationwide this year, or paperbacks of the writers’ earlier works stuffed in stockings.

There are best-selling authors, and then there are mega-best-selling authors — writers who have sold 100 million copies or more. Writers like Ken Follett, Nora Roberts, James Patterson and Stephenie Meyer. And there may be more of them now than ever.

These authors’ books are sold everywhere: In discount warehouses. At drugstores and supermarkets. They’re as much a staple of airport stalls as those curious neck pillows.

The success of these works can be attributed to the cumulative power of the international marketplace, although because of multiple foreign imprints and varying publishing formats (hardcover, paperback, e-books) total worldwide sales can only be estimated.

The mega-sellers’ ranks include romance writers (Roberts, Danielle Steele, Debbie Macomber), a goosebumpy spinner of creepy stories for children (R.L. Stine), a laureate of love (Sparks, who eschews the romance label), a Muggle of British wizardry (J.K. Rowling, selling more than an estimated 450 million books), a provocateur of shades of kink (E.L. James) and, more than any other genre, practitioners of suspense and thrills (Grisham, King, Brown, Dean Koontz, Jeffrey Archer, David Baldacci and Mary Higgins Clark).

Elite readers may scoff at consistent best-selling writers, few of whom will ever win coveted awards or land on best-of-the-year lists. But tent-pole authors are the powerful engines that keep publishing houses profitable and able to float authors who win acclaim but not necessarily large sales.

How do you get to be a blockbuster author? Chiefly, they’re extraordinarily productive. They publish with Swiss-clock regularity — once a year, twice a year, monthly if it’s Patterson, who’s an industry unto himself, with a stable of writers working for him.

“You can’t be a one or two-book wonder,” says Jamie Raab, president and publisher of Grand Central Publishing, which acquired Sparks’ “The Notebook.”Authors like Sparks “tend to attract a lot of readers at the beginning, and then keep them,” says Raab, whose imprint also publishes Baldacci. “They give the reader what they like.”

The big writers rarely take their popularity for granted. They go where the readers are and continue to make appearances long after they’ve become established. In June, for “End of Watch,” King toured Dayton, Ohio; Tulsa; and Salt Lake City, places that more literary authors tend to fly over.

Most of all, though, the top sellers deliver a terrific story. In their novels, especially thrillers and science fiction, plot is paramount. The heroes tend to be relatable — shy, clumsy, anxious, myopic, in recovery, short-tempered, middle-class, broke — but their stories are fantastic, over-the-top, a wild ride and a welcome escape from a reader’s quotidian life.

“You can’t underestimate the value of entertainment that these guys are delivering,” says Suzanne Herz, executive vice president of Doubleday, which publishes Grisham and Brown. “There’s usually a David-versus-Goliath theme. You want the hero to come out on top.”

That’s because the heroes are worth rooting for. Scribner publisher Nan Graham edits King. “One of the things that makes Steve so exceptional is he navigates the line between the common and the supernatural, but he always begins with a common man,” she says. “Many of his heroes are working-class. They’re absolutely from the heartland of America.”

King “is determined not to disappoint,” Graham says. “In 20 years of working with him, we’ve never not had a Stephen King book on the list.” At age 69, he keeps writing and writing.

He didn’t sell 350 million books through wishful thinking or banking on the prior success of “Misery” or “The Green Mile.” This year, he published what might take another author a decade or more to produce: a novel, a contribution to an essay collection, a children’s book and two short stories. He’ll have another novel next year. They’re all a sure way to keep King a king among readers, and have him dancing atop the bestseller list where he lives.