:00:00. > 3:59:59that! On Meet The Author Rebecca Jones speaks to the bestselling
:00:00. > :00:07.writer James Patterson. He plans to transform reading habits.
:00:08. > :00:11.James Patterson is the worlds biggest selling author. He is
:00:12. > :00:15.best-known for his thrillers but has written science fiction, novels for
:00:16. > :00:21.young people, romance and nonfiction. To date he has published
:00:22. > :00:26.over 140 books selling more than 350 million copies around the world. And
:00:27. > :00:31.she is the most borrowed author at UK libraries. That isn't enough for
:00:32. > :00:35.James, he now wants an even bigger audience by selling books to people
:00:36. > :00:39.he thinks have abandoned reading. And his solution is called book
:00:40. > :01:01.shops. -- BookShots. So, welcome James Patterson. What
:01:02. > :01:06.are BookShots? Hopefully a revolution in reading and the way we
:01:07. > :01:13.look at books, at the least and evolution, under 150 pages,
:01:14. > :01:21.relatively inexpensive and hopefully impossible to put down. It is one of
:01:22. > :01:25.my regular books except at 145 pages, very tight. You can get on
:01:26. > :01:29.the train, go to work, go home and you have read one, you have
:01:30. > :01:34.accomplished something which is cool. The slogan is all thriller, no
:01:35. > :01:39.filler. What makes you think someone will pick up one of these rather
:01:40. > :01:48.than a magazine? Books are like reading a movie. There is no fact.
:01:49. > :01:52.It is all story, hopefully with good characters. If you like Alex Cross,
:01:53. > :01:57.here is when you have not read before but it happened so quickly.
:01:58. > :02:06.In England we will start with six, it is a category, and Alex Cross, a
:02:07. > :02:12.zoo, one about the Royals which is kind of fun, one about a big heist,
:02:13. > :02:17.a diamond heist. Recently I was interviewed and I pulled out these
:02:18. > :02:27.eight very deep drawers and I have 107 of these book shops that finish
:02:28. > :02:34.now or in process -- what-macro. 80 of them are stories that I created.
:02:35. > :02:39.It is like, oh my God. The people interview me when like this, this is
:02:40. > :02:46.insane and I said great, insane. But for readers this is going to be a
:02:47. > :02:50.boon. Because they are addictive. You have written some of them but
:02:51. > :02:55.like your full-length novel, you employ a team of co-writers, tell us
:02:56. > :03:04.a bit about how that works, in practice? I wrote last year over
:03:05. > :03:08.2000 pages of outlines and they threw for drafts. It is an insane
:03:09. > :03:14.amount of writing. And usually when I want to co-write a book, I write
:03:15. > :03:20.an outline, for these it may be 30 pages and it is chapter by chapter.
:03:21. > :03:23.And what I will do with the co-writer is given the outline, I
:03:24. > :03:31.will say please contribute to the outline because that is useful and
:03:32. > :03:36.it gets the co-writer feeling involved in the process. The
:03:37. > :03:39.template for the book shops -- BookShots is every single chapter
:03:40. > :03:44.moves both the characterisation and the story forward and turns on the
:03:45. > :03:49.movie project in our heads so if that isn't happening, meaning you
:03:50. > :03:52.cannot see and feel and taste and smell it, if it is not moving
:03:53. > :03:58.forward and I'm not interested characters I will say, hold on, we
:03:59. > :04:03.have lost something. Then I will make suggestions and occasionally I
:04:04. > :04:13.did not do the outline correctly or the co-writer...! We will correct.
:04:14. > :04:20.If you look at them, they are smaller and thinner and hopefully on
:04:21. > :04:27.the trains and planes you will see people reading this smaller book. I
:04:28. > :04:33.have read that you work seven days a week, 52 weeks of the year, is that
:04:34. > :04:39.true, do not take Christmas day of? Christmas I would cite would be a
:04:40. > :04:42.light day but generally it is seven days a week. Somebody said you are
:04:43. > :04:47.lucky if you find something you like to do and it is a miracle people pay
:04:48. > :04:53.you to do it. And that is situation. Doing these BookShots, it has been
:04:54. > :04:58.the most fun year of my life because I love to tell stories and I was
:04:59. > :05:03.blocked with books I had because I had the Alex Cross and woman's
:05:04. > :05:08.murder club and we do not need any more hardback, there was no place
:05:09. > :05:15.for me to let my imagination go and now there is. I would have more
:05:16. > :05:18.content by the end of this year. It is little wonder that you are known
:05:19. > :05:23.as the busiest man in publishing not just because of the number of books
:05:24. > :05:28.you bite but because of the time and the money you spend on championing
:05:29. > :05:34.literacy, why is that so important? For me, the most important thing is
:05:35. > :05:38.getting kids reading. Because if our kids do not become competent
:05:39. > :05:43.readers, especially kids at risk, how they get jobs and go to school?
:05:44. > :05:51.If they get through, ten and 11 and they are not competent it...
:05:52. > :05:56.There'll be a drag on society and the city and all of us and it will
:05:57. > :06:04.make for a harder life for them and the thing about... As individuals I
:06:05. > :06:08.can't do much to solve global warming or health care crisis but as
:06:09. > :06:14.an individual we can all get the kids in our homes reading mostly, we
:06:15. > :06:19.can help the local school, we can help the local libraries, libraries
:06:20. > :06:24.are a big issue now and how they get funded in England. I just hope that
:06:25. > :06:28.people will stand up and say, the libraries are importance of need the
:06:29. > :06:32.money for libraries. How much does your interest in this stem from the
:06:33. > :06:41.fact you had a son who was a reluctant reader? Well, he is a
:06:42. > :06:44.bright sky, when he was eight that summer we said you can read every
:06:45. > :06:48.day and he said do I have to do and we said yes unless you want to live
:06:49. > :06:55.in the garage because we read in the house. But we said this is going to
:06:56. > :07:02.be painless, will buy books you like so we've got a dozen books on Percy
:07:03. > :07:05.Jackson and one of mine and by the end of the summer Jack had read a
:07:06. > :07:12.dozen books and is reading skills went up dramatically and ultimately
:07:13. > :07:17.they have SAT scores in America so a perfect score in reading is 800 and
:07:18. > :07:24.T had 800 and is going to an Ivy League college. In terms of what can
:07:25. > :07:27.happen, if you take charge with your children, make it your
:07:28. > :07:31.responsibility. There was nothing more important that a mother or
:07:32. > :07:35.father or grandparents do than make sure the kids read. It is good you
:07:36. > :07:41.get them out with exercise but they have to be able to read. You are
:07:42. > :07:47.hugely successful, a writer of commercial fiction, do you hanker
:07:48. > :07:52.after writing the great American novel? I Hafal birdie but they are
:07:53. > :08:05.commercial! No, I love what I do -- I have all ready. I want people to
:08:06. > :08:07.say James kept people up late at night and BookShots revolution. This
:08:08. > :08:15.is going to change the way people breed. Great to talk to. Thank you.
:08:16. > :08:16.-- the way people