WRITERS ARE NOT POOR NOISE MAKERS OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT.

JK Rowling: With a net worth of $1 billion, JK Rowling currently has the accolade of being the richest author in the world and is also the first author to ever achieve this level of financial success from their writing. She is best-known for writing the Harry Potter series of books from which she has made money from book sales, the movies and the wide range of Harry Potter related merchandise that is available. This British author has also written several adults books using the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. She has homes in London, Edinburgh, and Aberfeldy in Scotland.

James Patterson :James Patterson has a net worth of $750 million and earns an estimated $90 million per year. This novelist was born in Newburgh, New Jersey, on March 22, 1947. His best-known work is his books about Alex Cross, a fictional psychologist. His first novel in this series was The Thomas Berryman Number which was published in 1976. In addition to the Alex Cross series of books, he has also written the series Witch and the Wizard, Women’s Murder Club, Maximum Ride and Michael Bennett. Patterson has also written many stand-alone books. He studied for his B.A. in English at Manhattan College and received his M.A. in English from Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee.

Stephen King: A prolific American author, Stephen King has an estimated net worth of $400 million. He has sold over 350 million copies of his novels around the globe. His books and screenplays usually fall into the genres of horror, fantasy, gothic and suspense. Some of his most popular books have become movies. Some of these include ‘It’, ‘Carrie’, ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, ‘The Shining’, ‘Misery’, and ‘Stand By Me’. Throughout his career, King has received bountiful critical acclaim for his work and has won over 50 literary awards.
Dean Koontz: Dean Koontz has a net worth of $145 million and he is best-known for writing novels in the genre of suspense thrillers. He was born in Everett, Pennsylvania, on July 9, 1945. Most of his novels incorporate elements of satire, horror, mystery, and science-fiction. They are also often based in Orange County. During the early years of his career, Koontz wrote under pen names, including Leigh Nichols, David Axton, and Brian Coffey. To date, he has sold over 450 million copies of his books globally and his work has been published in 38 languages.

Jackie Collins: Jackie Collins is one of the most prolific British authors of all time and this is led to her having a net worth of $180 million. She was born in Hampstead, London, on October 4, 1937 and is the sister of actress Joan Collins. She is not just an author as she has also worked as a screenwriter, an actress, and a film producer. In 1968, she published her first novel, ‘The World is Full of Married Men’. During her career as an author, Jackie Collins has written 32 books and all of these were included on the New York Times’ Best Seller list. A total of eight of her books have been adapted into films, including ‘The Stud’ and ‘The Bitch’. She wrote a series of five novels called the ‘Hollywood Series’. She was married twice and had three children.

Jeffrey Archer:This English author and politician has a net worth of $200 million. He was born in London on April 15, 1940. He has sold over 250 million copies of his books internationally. However, he is most famous for serving a prison sentence for perjury and perverting the court of justice. His time in prison inspired the series of prison diaries. Another famous series of books written by Archer was the ‘Kane and Abel’ series. Most recently, he has written a series of books called the ‘Clifton Chronicles.

John Grisham:Worth $300 million, John Gresham earns approximately $50 million a year. He was born on February 8, 1955 and is an author, screenwriter, film producer, TV producer, and a lawyer. Throughout his career, this American author has sold in excess of 300 million books internationally. He wrote ‘A Time to Kill’, his first novel’ in 1987. Initially, this was rejected by many publishing houses before it was finally published in 1988 by Winwood Press.

Barbara Taylor Bradford: This British-American novelist is worth $300 million. Barbara Taylor-Bradford was born in Leeds, England, on May 10, 1933. Her debut novel was ‘A Woman of Substance’ which was published in 1979 and remains one of her best-known books. It was the first book in the Emma Harte saga and six books followed in this series. In addition to her novels, Bradford-Taylor has also authored a series of children’s books and a series of interior design books.

Nora Roberts: Nora Roberts has a net worth of $370 million and reportedly earns $20 million a year. This American author was born in Silver Spring, Maryland, on October 10, ‘950. She began writing in the late 1970s and her work was initially rejected by Harlequin. However, Silhouette Books accepted her submission and went on to publish 23 of her books between 1982 and 1984. Her first bestseller was ‘Playing the Odds’ which was published in 1985. She has now written a total of 209 novels.

Danielle Steel:Born in New York City on August 14, 1947, Danielle Steel has a net worth of $385 million. Although she wrote her first manuscript at 19, she didn’t publish her first book until nine years later following her divorce from first husband, Claude-Eric Lazard. She then had a short marriage to a man who was later convicted of rape followed by an equally short marriage to a drug addict. Steele married and divorced two further times. She has written over 70 novels, picture books, children’s literature and works of fiction.

However, when we bring it down to African writers, we have the likes of Chimamanda Adichie, Helon Habila, Sefie Attah, Wole Sonyika, Nadine Gordimer, Ayi Kwei Armah, Mariama Ba, Chinelo Okparanta, Kofi Awonoor, Tomi Adeyemi, of African origin; who in their own ways have made Africa very proud. We may not know their net worth now but they are who they are because they write today and they, in their little ways have contributed to the development of the world literary sphere.
They are writers. Writing contributed to 70% of their fame and wealth. I'd always defend what I believe so much in without any atom of fear. I'll always dance to the rhythm of my heart beat and make sure I follow what my heart tells me. You don't sit at the comfort of your room and call all writers nuisances or poor miscreants or something like that. Some journalists are the reason why you know what is happening in the world. They bring news to your door step. They take risk for you, they risk their lives to cover and write those things you read online. Without them, you may be lost in the deceptive hands of the politicians.

Writers also have their lives to live, they are noble people.They are modest to how they live their lives because they know that many people out there look up to them. Have you ever seen them begging for food in the street? Have you heard of any writer who was sick and couldn't be treated because he was poor? If you have heard of him, I will like to know. Have you seen them going against the rules and regulations of the society? They might be controversial in their dealings and other things but they are not noise makers rather they are always in search of what to feed your head and brain with. They are not miscreants or something like that.

Sometimes, they carve ourselves into places they've been to and places they have not been to, leaving their shadows to wander helplessly. Sometimes music becomes their solace in silent places but; they learn to tell themselves how much they love the world and their lives even when they are fighting unseen battles, they are who they are; writers!

Meanwhile, if you still claim that facebook writers are not writers and you can't read them, I won't blame or ask you why because life is made of choices. You can only take a Camel to the stream but you can never force it to drink water. I can point out some writers who have actually gone viral or world wide through facebook and other social media. So, the choice is yours.

So therefore, taking writing as a profession is infamously difficult to achieve success in Nigeria and the whole world generally. Many authors of great repute spend years writing books and sending them to publishers only to receive letters of rejection at the end of the day because their stories about some certain things or people do not meet up with what the publisher needs at that moment. However, having the ability to think of a storyline that will captivate a reader and write it in such a way that publishers are interested to work with you and readers are forced to purchase your books is something that many writers find close to impossible but they have to write no matter what it takes.

Consider this, writers are not poor noise makers as you've seen them to be either on virtual world or other places. They are refined intellectuals. The depth of their intellectualism makes them gods and prophets.

(Authors net worth Source: MoneyInc.com)

©John Chizoba Vincent
#LiquidWords