From advertising to literature—-fiction’s non-unionized conveyor belt factory, and purportedly nice guy, profiled at the Independent.

Over the years Patterson has focused on telling compelling stories rather than writing good sentences. He never set out to write Ulysses (which he has read three times), but mass-market, commercial fiction. And for a long while he didn’t take this that seriously. Patterson’s day job was in advertising. By the age of 39 he was appointed chief executive of J Walter Thompson, North America – the youngest in the firm’s history. He attributes his success largely to the sudden death of his then-partner Jane from a brain tumour. “I didn’t want to spend any time dealing with life – just work, nothing else.” However, advertising was never a great love. “I got to the point of hiring people I liked to be around, but there were too many layers and too many people who really didn’t know what they were doing. And it was too silly to get nutty about – Jesus, it’s a frigging cereal.”
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In Britain this year, Patterson’s name will appear on 10 original works. All will be bestsellers and most will be number ones. No wonder he doesn’t have time to pen every word – but to accuse him of not writing his own books is entirely to miss the point. “There is a kind of Mickey Mouse way of looking at brands. In particular in the States, a lot of the publishing houses are lost in the Middle Ages, they really don’t have a clue. I remember initially it was like, ‘Oh my God, he’s going to hurt the brand by doing other kinds of stories.’ And I said, here’s what I think a brand is, from my own experience with dealing with a lot of brands – a brand is just a connection between something and a lot of people who use or try that product.

“If there is a brand that’s called James Patterson, and I suppose there is, it’s that when you pick up a Patterson book you’ll not be able to stop reading. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a romantic story, a young-adult book, or non-fiction.”