JAMES PATTERSON—EST. $750 MILLION

James Brendan Patterson is a best-selling American novelist and philanthropist. After graduating from University, he worked in advertising, but after retirement, he chose to write novels. With his rich imagination and amazing literary skills, he quickly grew into a world-famous novelist. Since 1976, he has written 95 novels, and the sales volume of novels is among the highest in the world.

Few book authors have a name as recognizable as James Patterson. He’s been able to sell north of 300 million books worldwide, and he got the distinction of being the first author to have reached the 1 million mark in sales of electronic books. The man has been topping highest-paid authors lists for years, and with titles like Kiss the Girls and Along came a Spider under his belt—two books he’s written that have been adapted to the big screen—it is not a surprise that he’s managed to achieve the degree of success that he has.