What You Can Learn from the World's Top-Selling Author
No, it's not J.K. Rowling or Stephen King. The world's top-selling author by number of books sold is mystery writer James Patterson. It helps that he churns out three books a year.
According to this Guardian.com profile, Patterson works with seven or eight co-authors, each of whom has a strength to lend to a book. Patterson's role is to come up with a plot, and fine tune the contributions into a recognizable whole as the book rolls along the assembly line. His chapters are short, the plot strong, the narrative forceful. Using outside contributors and following a highly structured model allows Patterson to deliver a consistent, high quality product each time out, numerous times a year.
Patterson is not a great writer, but he is a great brand manager, even writing his own advertising copy and buying billboard space.
Harvard Business School marketing professor John Deighton admires Patterson's savvy. Deighton told HBS Working Knowledge:
"Patterson understands that if you want shelf space you need to publish a lot of books; that you need a production system with more than one author; and that you need to mind the brand."It's an interesting lesson in the power of operations and marketing to produce a successful and repeatable product, even if what is delivered to the customer falls a little short of high art.