:00:00. > :00:00.James Patterson is the world's biggest-selling author.
:00:00. > :00:00.He is best-known for his thrillers, but he's also written science
:00:00. > :00:12.fiction, novels for young people, romance and nonfiction.
:00:13. > :00:15.To date, he's published over 140 books, which have sold more
:00:16. > :00:18.than 350 million copies around the world.
:00:19. > :00:22.And he's also the most-borrowed author at UK libraries.
:00:23. > :00:25.But that's not enough for James Patterson,
:00:26. > :00:28.he now wants an even bigger audience, by selling books to people
:00:29. > :00:34.he thinks have abandoned reading, and his solution is called
:00:35. > :00:54.Hopefully, they are a revolution in reading
:00:55. > :00:58.At the least they are going to be an evolution.
:00:59. > :01:00.They are under 150 pages, relatively inexpensive,
:01:01. > :01:09.and hopefully impossible to put down.
:01:10. > :01:13.It's like one of my regular books on Alex Cross,
:01:14. > :01:17.except at, like, 145 pages, very tight.
:01:18. > :01:20.With a BookShot, you can get on the train, you can go to work,
:01:21. > :01:23.you get on the train and go home, and you've read one.
:01:24. > :01:25.So you've accomplished something, which is kind of cool.
:01:26. > :01:28.So the slogan is "all thriller, no filler", and is that what makes
:01:29. > :01:31.you think somebody will pick up one of these, rather than
:01:32. > :01:39.I mean, there's no fat, it's just all story,
:01:40. > :01:46.So if you like Alex Cross, here's an Alex Cross
:01:47. > :01:51.you haven't read before, but it just happened so quickly.
:01:52. > :01:54.Here in England we're going to start with six,
:01:55. > :01:58.so it's kind of a category of being Alex Cross,
:01:59. > :02:00.there will be a zoo, there's one about the Royals
:02:01. > :02:06.which is kind of fun, there's one about a big diamond heist.
:02:07. > :02:08.Recently I was interviewed in my office and I pulled out these
:02:09. > :02:11.eight very deep drawers, and I have 107 of these
:02:12. > :02:17.BookShots that are either finished now or in process.
:02:18. > :02:25.And of the 107, I would say 80 of them are stories that I created.
:02:26. > :02:29.In fact, the person interviewing me just went,
:02:30. > :02:31.like, "this is insane, this is crazy."
:02:32. > :02:36.But I think for readers, this is going to be a real boon,
:02:37. > :02:49.You've written some of them, but like your full-length novels,
:02:50. > :02:56.Just tell us a bit about how that actually works in practice.
:02:57. > :02:59.I wrote last year over 2000 pages of outlines.
:03:00. > :03:00.My outlines are always three or four drafts.
:03:01. > :03:03.So it's an insane amount of writing just that.
:03:04. > :03:05.And usually what I'll do when I co-write a book
:03:06. > :03:17.For these, the outline might be 30-something pages,
:03:18. > :03:20.and it just goes chapter, by chapter, by chapter.
:03:21. > :03:22.And what I will do with the co-writer is I'll
:03:23. > :03:24.give them the outline, I will say please contribute
:03:25. > :03:27.to the outline, because that's useful, and it gets the co-writer
:03:28. > :03:35.The template for the BookShots is that every single chapter moves
:03:36. > :03:37.both the characterisation and the story forward,
:03:38. > :03:39.and turns on the movie projector in our heads.
:03:40. > :03:42.So if that's not happening, meaning that you can't see it,
:03:43. > :03:45.you can't feel it, you can't taste it, you can't smell it,
:03:46. > :03:47.if it's not moving forward, if I'm not interested
:03:48. > :03:58.in the character, I will say, hold it.
:03:59. > :04:02.Occasionally it's that I didn't figure out the outline correctly,
:04:03. > :04:05.more often it's that the co-writer is, you know...
:04:06. > :04:17.If you look at them, they're smaller, obviously
:04:18. > :04:21.Hopefully on all the trains and the planes you'll see people
:04:22. > :04:25.I've read that you work seven days a week, 52 weeks
:04:26. > :04:30.Do you not even take a day off for Christmas Day?
:04:31. > :04:32.Christmas I would say would be a very light day.
:04:33. > :04:34.But generally it is seven days a week.
:04:35. > :04:36.Somebody said, you're lucky if you find something
:04:37. > :04:38.you like to do, and then it's a miracle if somebody
:04:39. > :04:48.With doing these BookShots, this has been the most
:04:49. > :04:53.Because I love to tell stories, and I was kind of blocked
:04:54. > :04:56.with the books that I had, because I had the Alex Cross series
:04:57. > :04:59.and the Women's Murder Club, and Private, and it's like,
:05:00. > :05:11.So there was no place for me to let my imagination
:05:12. > :05:15.I will have more content than Marvel by the end of this year.
:05:16. > :05:18.It's little wonder that you're known as the busiest man in publishing,
:05:19. > :05:20.not just because of the number of books you're writing,
:05:21. > :05:23.but also because of the time and the money that you spend
:05:24. > :05:28.For me, the most important thing is getting kids reading.
:05:29. > :05:31.Because, if our kids don't become at least competent readers,
:05:32. > :05:34.especially kids who are at risk, how are they going to get jobs, how
:05:35. > :05:40.If they get through, if they are 10 or 11 years
:05:41. > :05:42.old and are not competent, they are going to be
:05:43. > :05:45.a drag on the society, on the city, on all of us,
:05:46. > :05:56.and it's going to make for a much harder life for them.
:05:57. > :05:58.As individuals, I can't do much to solve global warming,
:05:59. > :06:02.But as an individual, we can all get the kids
:06:03. > :06:06.We can help the local school, we can help the local libraries.
:06:07. > :06:09.Libraries are a big issue right now, and how they get funded
:06:10. > :06:18.I just hope that people will stand up and go,
:06:19. > :06:20.our libraries are really important, so we need the money
:06:21. > :06:31.How much does your interest in this stem from the fact that you had
:06:32. > :06:36.When he was eight years old, that summer we said,
:06:37. > :06:48.We said, yes, unless you want to live in the garage.
:06:49. > :06:52.We said, this is going to be painless, we're going to go
:06:53. > :06:54.out and find books that you'll really like.
:06:55. > :06:58.So we went out and got a dozen books, we got him a Percy Jackson,
:06:59. > :07:02.By the end of the summer, Jack had read a dozen books,
:07:03. > :07:04.and his reading skills went up dramatically.
:07:05. > :07:06.Ultimately, they have SAT scores in America, so a perfect
:07:07. > :07:16.He's going to an Ivy League college next year.
:07:17. > :07:19.In terms of what can happen, if you take charge
:07:20. > :07:20.with your children, and make it your responsibility.
:07:21. > :07:23.There's nothing more important than a mother and father,
:07:24. > :07:24.grandparents too, making sure their kids read.
:07:25. > :07:27.It's good you get them out and they get some exercise,
:07:28. > :07:33.that's a positive, but they've got to be able to read.
:07:34. > :07:35.You are hugely successful, a writer of commercial mainstream fiction.
:07:36. > :07:46.Do you hanker after writing the great American novel?
:07:47. > :07:48.I have already, they're just commercial!
:07:49. > :07:51.I love what I do, I think it serves a purpose.
:07:52. > :07:54.On my gravestone, "James kept a lot of people up late at night."
:07:55. > :07:57.And BookShots are going to be one of the reasons.
:07:58. > :08:05.This is going to change the way people read.
:08:06. > :08:18.James Patterson, it's been great to talk to you, thanks so much.
:08:19. > :08:32.Happy New Year. There will be contrast in conditions to start the
:08:33. > :08:34.New Year with better weather in the north and wintry