PATTERSON
JAMES
Today a Reader, Tomorrow a Leader Most people know me as James Patterson, bestselling author. It’s a fair assessment—that’s certainly first and foremost how I got my reputation as a writer of adult thrillers and mysteries. But a lot less people think of me as a book publisher. In May of 2015, I launched my own children’s book imprint, JIMMY Patterson Books. I first had the idea many years ago, when my wife, Sue, and I were teaching my son, Jack, how to read. He had trouble connecting with the books he was reading, and it took some time for me to realize that he didn’t enjoy reading because he wasn’t reading books he enjoyed. That’s when I started writing my own children’s books. I started out with Maximum Ride, a bestselling, much beloved series about a girl with wings and her misfit gang of friends. People fell in love with Max Ride. In the events I’ve done over the years since the first book was released, countless young adults have come to me and expressed thanks for that series, because it turned them into readers. I firmly believe that there’s no such thing as a kid who hates reading. There are kids who love reading, and kids who are reading the wrong books. I continued to write books that I thought kids would enjoy, with the aim to turn reluctant readers into lifelong readers. My Middle School series has 11 books and counting—they’re funny, illustrated, and have a lot of heart. A lot of my middle grade books follow this model, because over the years, I’ve learned that this 16
Story Monsters Ink | April 2019 | StoryMonsters.com
is what kids love. Kids will flock to these types of books over and over again, because they always deliver. Kids devour these books— whether they’re the books in my series, or similar successes, like Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Dork Diaries, and Dogman. So when I launched my imprint, JIMMY Patterson Books, I knew that our goal would be to put books in the hands of kids who otherwise wouldn’t be seeking them. I wanted to instill a lifelong habit of reading in young children by creating books that would entertain them and educate them, however subtly. We want every kid who finishes a JIMMY book to say, “Please give me another book.” Because kids who read grow into informed adults—adults who are open to empathy, who like to learn, who care about their planet. In addition to writing books for my imprint, I also act as the publisher. People think it’s “simple” enough to write a book: you write the manuscript, get an agent, and the agent sells it to an editor at a publishing
