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Every week, The Thread tackles your book questions, big and small. Ask 

This week's question: Who are the highest-paid authors?

"Don't quit your day job." That's the ubiquitous, dream-popping piece of advice every aspiring writer receives in his or her lifetime. 

There's a caveat, though: You can go ahead and ditch that temp gig (and pop a bottle of champagne) if you manage to write a bestseller that moves more than a million copies and is picked up by Hollywood.
 
That's the case for the newest entry on 

Forbes' list of the world's highest-paid authors

: Paula Hawkins. Hawkins wrote last year's juggernaut, "The Girl on the Train," which set the record for the fastest-selling adult hardcover fiction debut 

In just a year, she went from a struggling writer in South London, borrowing money from her father to pay her bills, to selling 11 million copies worldwide and raking in $10 million. The film adaptation of "The Girl on the Train," starring Emily Blunt, comes out this fall.

Who else is on the Forbes list? There's the usual suspects — the authors that churn out one or more books per year — James Patterson, John Grisham, Nora Roberts, Danielle Steele. And you can never underestimate the power of a series: Seven of the authors on the list hit their big breaks with multi-volume sagas.  

 estimated each author's earnings from June 2015 to June 2016, and considered book sales, movie options and other related income.  

The Forbes 2016 list of highest-paid authors

 He's a machine, sometimes producing up to 15 books per year through his 

 Starts with a "H," ends with an "arry Potter"

 "Divergent," a post-apocalyptic young adult series

 Young adult favorites like "Fault in Our Stars" and "Paper Towns"

 "A Song of Fire and Ice" series, better known as "Game of Thrones"

 "Percy Jackson and the Olympians," a young adult adventure series

 "The Da Vinci Code" and all that it spawned

Several authors that made the Forbes list last year dropped off for 2016: Janet Evanovich (who churns out mysteries at break neck speeds), Suzanne Collins (of "Hunger Games" fame) and Gillian Flynn (who broke onto the scene with "Gone Girl").

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Tracy Mumford

Author

"Writers" and "millions of dollars" aren't often used in the same sentence, but these authors pulled in the biggest paychecks this year, according to Forbes.

Thread producers Tracy Mumford and Stephanie Curtis go over the Forbes list of highest paid authors with MPR News host Kerri Miller. They also talk about some unexpected names on that list. 8/9/16

The highest-paid authors of 2016

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