James Patterson is an American author who writes in genres including mystery, thriller, espionage, fantasy, romance, and young adult fiction. He is known for his prolific career; since his first novel, The Thomas Berryman Number, was released in 1976, Patterson has written or co-written more than 200 novels. In 2010, he became the first author to sell more than one million e-books (“First Author to Sell More Than One Million E-Books.” Guinness World Records, 25 Aug. 2010). He is estimated to have sold more than 425 million copies of his books worldwide (“James Patterson’s Ultimate Story: How He Sold 400 Million Books.” Investor’s Business Daily, 12 Oct. 2022).

Patterson has been criticized for co-authoring numerous titles, which critics claim indicates that he is more invested in profits than writing high-quality works. Digital humanities scholars have tracked Patterson’s projects, concluding that Patterson does very little of the actual writing in his co-authored texts; his contributions come mainly from imagining plots (Fuller, Simon, and James O’Sullivan. “Structure Over Style: Collaborative Authorship and the Revival of Literary Capitalism.” Digital Humanities Quarterly, vol. 11, no. 1, 2017).

Despite such criticisms, Patterson’s co-authored texts continue to sell in high quantities.