Aspiring authors must cringe every time news of a seven-figure book deal hits the news. With print media in dire straits financially, publishers are after the safe bet. They’re willing to cough up millions for the memoirs of a famous public figure or the latest novel from an established literary superstar who they know will sell a million copies, but that means there’s that much less advance money to go around. Nevertheless, huge book deals make the news often enough to keep starry-eyed writers dreaming of that life-changing payday. Here are 10 lucky recipients of the biggest book advances ever reported.
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James Patterson, $100 million
One. Hundred. Million. That’s how much Hachette Book Group agreed to pay author James Patterson to write not a trilogy, not a decology, but 17 books! The announcement came on September 8, 2009, and stipulated that all the books would be written by the end of 2012, with 11 for adults and six young-adult books. Maybe Patterson is counting on the end of the world to keep from having to fill his quota. Even if he doesn’t sell a single copy of the 17, he’d still be one of the highest-selling authors of all time, with 220 million sold worldwide. -
Ken Follett, $50 million
Author Ken Follett is a hugely-popular writer of historical fiction, with four books that have been New York Times bestsellers. In 2008, Follett signed with Penguin for a reported $50 million to pen his "Century" trilogy (so over $16.5 million per novel). The first book, Fall of Giants, was 1,000 pages long, which sounds great until you see the price tag: $36. But that didn’t stop it from selling almost two million copies in 10 weeks. -
Bill Clinton, $15 million
Say what you will about Slick Willy, you can’t deny his presidency made for some entertaining reading. After a huge sex scandal led to Clinton’s becoming only the second U.S. president to be impeached, publishers started seeing dollar signs. In the end, Knopf Publishing earned the right to publish Clinton’s autobiography My Life in 2004. At the time, the reported $12 million payday would have been the richest book advance in world history. It wasn’t until 2008, when the Clintons released their tax returns for the previous eight years, that it was discovered the actual fee had been a stupefying $15 million. -
Joel Osteen, $13 million
Lakewood Church is so big it meets in the former home of the Houston Rockets. Pastor Joel Osteen’s positive messages of prosperity and hope have resonated with people across the country, and millions tune in each Sunday to watch him deliver televised sermons. The religion business is so good that Osteen stopped accepting his $200,000 salary from the church once he started having paydays, like the time Simon & Schuster gave him a $13 million book advance. Become a Better You: 7 Keys to Improving Your Life Every Day had a first run of 3 million copies, the biggest ever by the publisher. -
Sarah Palin, $11 million
Sarah Palin took the super-accelerated path to riches as a result of politicking. She put in her time as governor of Alaska, which couldn’t have been real fun. But her nomination as John McCain’s running mate in 2008, coupled with her "hot mom" looks and beauty-pageant past catapulted her to national celebrity. Oh, and she had some political views and stuff. Just four months after HarperCollins announced Palin’s book deal — for a reported $11 million — Going Rogue hit bookshelves and was gobbled up by 2 million conservatives and moose-hunting aficionados. -
Janet Evanovich, $10 million
The author of a bestselling series of novels featuring her character Stephanie Plum, a lingerie-buyer-turned-bounty hunter, Evanovich has sold 75 million books worldwide and reportedly now commands $10 million per title from her new publisher, Random House. She seems to value herself slightly higher than that, as she recently left her long-time publisher St. Martin’s Press after failing to lock down a four-book, $50 million deal. -
Pope John Paul II, $8.5 million
What does a pope need money for? His clothes, meals, and housing are all provided. Heck, he even gets his own Popemobile. But Pope John Paul II was able to afford a closet full of those pointed hats after he scored an $8.5 million advance for his collection of essays called Crossing the Threshold of Hope, in 1994 ($12.9 million today). Again it was Knopf Publishing fronting the money for the book that would be printed in 40 languages and become a bestseller. -
Alan Greenspan, $8.5 million
Some might say Alan Greenspan is to blame for the current financial mess America is in. He served as the chairman of the Federal Reserve for nearly 20 years, but he was smart enough to jump ship in 2006 when he figured out what was coming in the markets wasn’t going to be pretty. He retired on January 31, 2006, and by March 8 news outlets were announcing the book deal for his memoirs involved an $8.5 million advance. Since then, there have been a few unhappy people that wanted a word with him, but he still had 8.5 million reasons to smile. -
Hillary Clinton, $8 million
A sweet book deal is the upside of being married to a notorious philanderer. Bill Clinton’s better half was able to wrangle $8 million from Simon & Schuster for her memoir of life in the White House, just over half of what he earned for his book. Some found the ethics of selling the book so close to being elected to the Senate a bit unethical, but that didn’t hurt sales. Living History broke records for sales in its first few weeks, even though reviewers found it generally lacking on major revelations or insight. -
John F. Welch, Jr., $7.1 million
If there’s one thing Jack Welch knows, it’s business. (Actually he knows more than that because he’s a chemical engineer.) Under his leadership as chairman and CEO of General Electric for 20 years, stock rose 4,000%. So when he strolled into the offices of publisher Business Plus in 2000, it didn’t matter that he had no written proposal for his biography. The company offered Welch a $7.1 million advance. Four years later, HarperCollins drafted Welch to write a book on business for the healthy sum of $4 million.
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