In the past year, he’s written 117 volumes for BookShots.Īlthough written is not the precise verb. Snaps Patterson of that last decision by publisher Little, Brown: “Honestly, I would have been more aggressive.” In the buffet of fiction, BookShots are small plates if we’re being kind, junk food if we’re not: fewer than 150 pages, roughly the size of an iPad mini, retail price $4.99. They want to binge,” says the former adman and onetime creative chief at J. The motto: “Stories at the speed of life.” The paperbacks will be sold in airports, drugstores, big-box emporiums, sometimes affixed to clip strips like bags of gummy bears. He labels BookShots “a revolution” and “a huge thing.” He has a way of making grand statements calmly - in contrast with his fevered characters - but with the absolute conviction of a very successful man. More than once, Patterson refers to himself as the literary equivalent of a showrunner. BookShots’ editorial director, Washington native Bill Robinson, has a background in both fields and serves as executive producer of “Zoo,” the CBS series based on Patterson’s book of the same name. “Every single chapter is conceived to move the plot and the characterization forward,” he says, “and to turn on the movie projectors in our heads.” (Want to write like this? You can! Through the online James Patterson MasterClass!) Verbs outnumber adjectives, which Patterson appears to view as the literary equivalent of parsley. The sentences are simple and declarative.Ĭhapters are hiccups. “In an awful lot of novels, there’s more in them than there should be.” The trick? “I’ve taken the fat out of commercial novels,” he says. “In this day and age, when so many people have decided to spend so much of their lives not reading books, I think to create a new habit for them is a smart thing,” says Patterson, 69, perched in the summer study of his Hudson Valley home, the room dominated by a sleigh bed where he reads and edits.
He is an industry unto himself.Īnd now the author of popular thrillers - and children’s books and young adult novels and romances and mysteries - has launched BookShots, a series of short, cheap, plot-propelled novels directed at an audience more prone to reading smartphones than print. But his popularity among readers remains incontrovertible. His author bio: “James Patterson has written more bestsellers and created more enduring fictional characters than any other novelist today.” Beloved by critics and peers? Not so much. In book publishing, there is James Patterson - and basically everyone else. (Chris Sorensen For The Washington Post) (Chris Sorensen for The Washington Post) (Chris Sorensen/for The Washington Post)īRIARCLIFF MANOR, N.Y. Bestselling author James Patterson at his home in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.
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