James Patterson, Now a Memoirist, Reflects on His Ad Days

With well over 150 books to his name, James Patterson is one of the few writers in history whose name has transcended being an author and has become a multimedia empire. After selling more than 400 million copies of his thrillers, youth titles, graphic novels and collaborations with celebrities including Dolly Parton and Bill Clinton, Patterson recently embarked on a new kind of book: his first memoir. As the autobiographical collection of stories, James Patterson by James Patterson, neared its June 6 publication date, Patterson sat down with Adweek to reflect on his years as an executive at venerable agency J. Walter Thompson, his decision to leave the ad game, and his mixed bag of experiences with film and TV adaptations. Adweek: Your memoir, James Patterson by James Patterson, comes out June 6. Why write a memoir now?James Patterson: Covid made me do it. I was locked in this office from 7 in the morning to 6 at night, seven days a week. So I had a lot more time on my hands, and I started writing down the stories. How'd you get your first break in advertising?I'd tried to get a job as a cabbie, but at the time I had long hair and the guy who ran the cabs, sort of like Danny DeVito, he chased me off: "I'd never hire you, you hippie bastard!" So I went for an interview at J. Walter Thompson. For some godforsaken reason, they hired me. And you worked your way all the way up to CEO.I was doing it and writing books on the side, and honestly it was working OK and I didn't want to mess it up. And then at a certain point, Burt Manning, who ran the whole company while I ran North America, says I told him, "I can't afford to work for J. Walter anymore" because I was doing so well with the books. I don't know if I said that or not. There were things about it I liked, and things about it I didn't like, like [former WPP CEO] Martin Sorrell. It was time to go. How do you know when it's time to quit your day job?A lot of it is, you've got to deal with reality. It should have been very obvious to me that I needed to get out of there. What I didn't like about it was clients, because they don't listen to you. In the book world, I'm it. I write what I want to write. I don't have any clients to help or get in the way. How do you get started—or get serious—about writing a book?If you really want to write that kind of stuff, you can't help yourself. I couldn't. The passion is just too strong. The first book I wrote, The Thomas Berryman Number, I was 26. It got turned down by 31 publishers, then it got published by Little, Brown and it won an Edgar as a best first novel that year. If you want to do it, you just have to. I love to write, even ads—up to a point. You've done several TV and film adaptations. How has that process been?It's not great. The attitude, for the most part, about novelists is not terrific. People talk about how I co-write sometimes; I went in the writers room for Zoo [a Patterson novel adaptation that aired for three seasons on CBS], and here's nine writers. Talk about co-writing! Everyone was nice and funny, but the showrunner felt compelled to say, "You know, James, let's face it: Zoo is a B novel, but we're going to do an A+ series." I just kind of laughed. Unfortunately, they didn't do an A+ series, and I knew they wouldn't because it needed to be a feature. On the budgets for network television, I knew they couldn't do it. It had to be bigger. How James Patterson Went From Adman to Bestselling Mystery Novelist We did the Jeffrey Epstein thing on Netflix, Filthy Rich, and they involved me in that a bit. Amazon has just greenlit an Alex Cross series [a Patterson protagonist], so that'll be interesting. It's a mixed bag out there. I would never write a Hollywood novel, but if I did, I have my opening line: "‘Hello,' I lied." They're not bad people; there's just a lot of fear in the air. People are always afraid they're going to be fired. The writers, in particular, just feel they have to fight you because they're so used to having to fight for everything, every word. Any other ad stories you think people can learn from?There was an account guy, and he couldn't stand me at first. He found me to be kind of cocky. But I was running stuff, and you have to be relatively sure of what you're doing, and my track record was good. After a while, he had the line, "If Patterson says a grasshopper can pull a plow, hitch up that little motherfucker." You're not going to follow anyone blindly, but the general thing was, trust within reason. A lot of people cannot look at this storyboard or this piece of paper and see the movie. Sometimes it does require some trust. Do you have any goals for this memoir and the impact it has on readers?I'm hoping for either a Pulitzer or Nobel Prize. [Laughs.] Probably not going to happen.

Leadership & Talent

James Patterson, Now a Memoirist, Reflects on the Lessons of His Time in Advertising

The bestselling author says to trust your instincts—especially on when it's time to leave your job

David Griner

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David Griner