'Divergent' And 'The Fault In Our Stars' Made Their Authors Lots Of Money

By Kevin P. Sullivan

September 9, 2014 / 10:38 AM

It's no secret that YA has taken over both the publishing world and the movie theaters, thanks to film adaptations of "Divergent" and "The Fault in Our Stars" cleaning up at the box office. There's obviously money to be made writing books about teens living in dystopian futures with relationship problems and teens living with cancer and relationship problems, but the question is always "How much money?"

Forbes just debuted its list of the top-earning authors of 2014, and this year's rundown makes the power of YA clear. Veronica Roth and John Green were among the new additions to the list. In the case of the "Divergent" author, she earned as much as Stephen King and more than "Hunger Games" author Suzanne Collins, J.K. Rowling and George R.R. Martin.

And not to make light of $9 million -- a list where that's last is a good list to be on -- Green rounded out the list, tied with another newbie, "Gone Girl" author Gillian Flynn.

Check out Forbes' full list of the top-earning authors of 2014 below.

James Patterson - $90 million

Dan Brown - $28 million

Nora Roberts - $23 million

Danielle Steel - $22 million

Janet Evanovich - $20 million

Jeff Kinney - $17 million

Veronica Roth - $17 million

John Grisham - $17 million

Stephen King - $17 million

Suzanne Collins - $16 million

J.K. Rowling - $14 million