James Patterson Won't Leave Me Alone

From time to time, I check my email spam folder, generally when I'm expecting some kind of verification code that never arrives. Today I noticed that "James Patterson" really, really likes my work and wants to include me in his reader circle.

And he's persistent! Since he hadn't heard back, he followed up---multiple times. Sure, I get that he's 79 years old and now mostly "co-writes" with other authors:

The Outline: Patterson conceptualizes the story and writes a highly detailed, scene-by-scene outline. These outlines are often 50 to 90 pages long. 

The Drafting: He passes this blueprint to a co-author. The collaborator writes the actual chapters, filling in the prose, dialogue, and descriptions. 

The Revisions: Every few weeks, the co-author submits the draft pages. Patterson reads them, edits line-by-line in longhand, makes structural rewrites, and sends them back

 ...which leaves him with a lot of free time, but he should be enjoying his $800 million nest egg, not organizing, in essence, book clubs. Besides, why isn't his book club reading his books? He's got plenty.

I'll be honest--I've never read a James Patterson book. He writes thrillers or something, right? 

In his initial email, he stated, "​I actually tried to have my Scouting Team add you to my internal 2026 Reading Circle shortlist, but the entry was rejected by our auditors. To be blunt: the work is being "ghosted" by the retail architecture." (emphasis: his)

James, I don't even know what this means. So, I consulted my handy-dandy AI:

"The work is being 'ghosted' by the retail architecture"

• What it means: The book has fallen victim to digital shadowbanning or algorithmic suppression by major online book retailers (like Amazon or Ingram).

Well, that explains my lack of sales! 😏I knew there had to be a reason! But James, you still found it (somehow) and you are contacting me because...?

The Bottom Line

The sender likes the author's writing but cannot legally or contractually include the book because the book's digital distribution is broken. They are giving the author a blunt, behind-the-scenes warning that they need to fix their book's formatting, metadata, or retail distribution settings to make it visible to the public again.

Again, you like my book, but can't use it in your "circle", yet you're emailing me to...let me know that? James, you're confusing! Are your faculties slipping? That often happens with the elderly. No wonder you let other people write "your" books.

As it turns out, James is offering to have his auditor "pull a quick report on what is happening with your backend indexing. Just let me know if you want to take a look so we can see if we can still make this work." 

Befuddled as he may be, it's still awfully nice of James to go above and beyond just to help me out. I'm still unsure what "this" is that he wants to make work, but he's rich and famous, so I totally trust him.

And speaking of persistent! He not only emailed me several times at my author email account, but my personal account as well! It's touching that James Patterson is that much a fan of my work.  

Not to be nitpicky, James, but you really should get a dedicated email address. Only nobodies like me use gmail (not that there's anything wrong with that). It just seems to me that something like "jamespatterson@jamespatterson.com" would carry more cachet (and wouldn't land in people's spam folders). I almost missed your multiple missives!

Sadly, it seems James has given up:

"However, as I haven't heard back, I assume your current schedule or interests might be focused elsewhere at this time. I completely respect that and will be moving forward with our current shortlist to stay on track with our production timeline."

His loss. 

Again, not to be nitpicky, James, but the correct usage would be "since I haven't heard back", unless you're aiming for a more down-home style (for the peasants). But really, rich people like you, especially rich writers, need to be more on the ball. Even amateurs like me notice these things. It almost reads as if it was written by AI.

Not to brag, but James Patterson is not the first famous author to contact me. I've also heard from Mitch Albom. I haven't read any of his books, either. Mitch doesn't have a readers circle, but rather a "collective". Essentially the same thing. These famous authors stay busy! And while Mitch is only worth $10 million, a pittance really, he's still clinging to his gmail address. I've heard that millionaires are notoriously cheap. What differentiates Mitch from James Patterson is that Mitch understands that "no response means no", just like with literary agents. So, he hasn't sent any follow-ups.

In the midst of wallowing in my obscurity, it is a real ego boost to be noticed by these best selling writers. I guess paying it forward really is a thing. I bet they discuss my work between themselves. Would love to hear what they say about me! But I'm not taking any steps until I accumulate three more famous authors. That would make it a true five finger discount, although the five finger discount is already implied.