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How much are famous authors worth per word? (infographic)

An infographic compares how much the richest authors earned in 2017 with how many words they wrote.
Have you ever thought about how much every word you write is really worth?
The team from Title Pro Loans has released an interesting infographic that answers a question “what would the top highest-paid authors of 2017 make if they were paid per word?”
A panel for each of the eleven listed authors comes with a set of figures: payout in 2017, number of books written all time, number of copies sold all time, and book(s) recently released accompanied by the word count.
The calculations are hypothetical, as many authors get a considerable part of their pay from everything else than writing – movie or TV deals, signings, or merchandise.
Yet, it’s incredibly interesting to see the value of every single word written by the big-name author. Just imagine: typing a few characters would give J.K. Rowling almost $1,000 in 2017. To be exact, it’s $957.66 per word.
How were the calculations made? First, the team from Title Pro Loans found out how much money the biggest authors made in 2017. Then, they compared the net value of each author with the completed word count for that year. J.K. Rowling is an exception – Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was released in 2016, not 2017.
Take, for instance, James Patterson: Net worth estimates put him at $87 million per year, but he’s completed only slightly more than 300,000 words, and most of that wasn’t alone!
Click or tap the infographic to see it enlarged.

Via Title Pro Loans Discovery Center.
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As a frequent visitor of her favorite local library, Ola is particularly interested in how books and libraries evolve in the digital age. Ebooks, print, audiobooks – for her, all books are equal.
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