I just watched that clip. No way could I listen to hours of that. He waffles and repeats himself, not really saying anything beyond, 'make it interesting'. Wow. I never considered doing that. Thanks James. Remember, to win a race, coming first is often the best way to achieve victory. If you don't come first, come second and then appeal.
I just watched it too, and I have got to agree, not much of an insight really... I thought trailers are supposed to make you 'invest' in that product and make it 'really interesting'. Seems James has not taken his own advice when trying to sell his course.
James Patterson must be writing in his sleep the way he spews out novel after novel. So it makes sense that some may want to borrow a leaf from him. But the general consensus here seems to be he's not good enough to catch some newcomers' attention or has nothing "new" to tell anyone. I guess to each his/her own. But if someone has sold millions and millions of novels (minus the ghostwriting part), he must know one or two things about how to capture readers' attention. So OP, if you really feel like spending that money to benefit your skills, by all means, the choice is yours.
I would actually say his sales are more due to the marketing hype train and the fact he had a few stories turned into movies. If he was an unknown author who just realised a book now, it would probably get lost in the noise.
Not gonna lie, listening to him made me think a few things: + ‘Dude, can you at least sound like you're interested in talking about this? You sound so distracted, like you're just trying to hurry things along so you can do other things.’ + ‘OK, so I have to make my readers care about the person getting killed. Great. How? Do I just half-ass it by giving the person a child, then killing said person off in front of his/her child? How do I make it interesting?’ I recommend everyone just stick to this forum.
If war movies have taught me anything, all you need to do is stop the action for a moment so the doomed soldier can show a picture of his sweetheart back home that he's gonna marry, 'Lou-Anne, she's the one for me!' And then resume action. Boom. Dead. Awww, poor ol' Lou-Anne. Any soldier that says his wife left him because she couldn't wait for his return is gonna survive, however. Ah, the tragedy of war... movies.
Or have a soldier character show everyone a picture of a little child and say, “That's my boy/girl. I'm gonna be a good daddy to him/her.” Insta-tragedy! But seriously, it's like Patterson's implying, ‘I don't care if it's a cop-out, make me care about this character. Shoe-horn an image of a baby and say that's the doomed character's child if you have to.’ Nothing on what to avoid, etc.
Patterson has other people write his novels for him at this point. That's how he gets them out so fast. He prepares treatments and then has writers who do the writing.
I think that's when a writer has sold their soul. It kind of defeats the whole object of being a writer, wouldn't you say?
I'd say so as well. Patterson doesn't hide it, though, and he's not apologetic. He's making a killing doing it, but I think the books suck.
Ghostwriters, plural. He puts his name on other people's work. It's a factory production. James Patterson: how the bestseller factory works There's a market for it. If that's your thing, I'd watch as many free videos online of his as I could to get an idea if it was worth paying for more. With writing advice, what works for one might be different from what works for another.
I've only ever read one of his books. It was such tripe I've never bothered looking at another. It was a formulaic detective novel that was poorly written. I can't recall the name of the book.
I've heard some of his first few novels were good, but never bothered looking after whatever crappy one I first picked up.
Stephen King's On Writing is alone is a much better deal than that. Hell, even the limited edition of Halo 5: Guardians is more worth my money than this. Patterson has only written twenty percent of his books and they suck massive coconuts. I've read a little bit of a few and i was mistaking it for a trolling parade than actual writing. I can't believe they kill trees for this clown. Spend that $90 on another author whose earned their publication. For the sake of literature.
Re Patterson's writing skills, you're choir preaching. But surely he has some marketing knowledge. I wouldn't pay for a seminar in marketing from the guy, but I might listen to him discuss the topic if it were free.
He wants kids to read like he's some saint for literary growth but he forces ghost writers to write their blood, sweat and tears for him to take most of the royalties that they earned. It's okay to have co writers or a chain group helping out on a novel or two, but 80 percent of your books? That's just beyond the meaning of lazy. He's the Britney Spears of the publishing industry. There's more people than the amount of fingers on both of my hands that deserve the riches he has received.
No one is forced to work for the guy. His writers can go do something else instead. Preferably, something other than writing.
