Who is “We”? | How James Patterson Became the Ultimate Best-Seller

I've been building this profile of James Patterson from archival sources for a month or so. I was cynical about Patterson's authorship situation but, as I fell deeper and deeper into the archive, he became a way more complicated figure than I anticipated. Patterson strikes me now as a pivotal figure (almost a stress test) in the conversation about what an author-reader relationship actually means. This piece reconstructs some key moments in his career, some of the most telling public exchanges, and some of the machinery behind his operation.