The Waiter's Pad

There’s no way this can be good, or so I thought. He’s the McDonald’s of authors. Cheap and everywhere. 

I was wrong, he’s more like Starbucks. 

James Patterson by James Patterson was fun! And reading should be fun. 

An “ego-biography” the book runs through Patterson’s life, from blue-collar Massachusetts to New York madmen to Palm Beach production. And the book runs. It’s fast. Short chapters. Strong stories. No wonder people love the guy. 

If there’s a summary of Patterson’s story it’s this quote from his grandmother, hungry dogs run faster. Peterson was hungry. 

He worked at McLean Hospital where “I had begun scribbling short stories…I couldn’t stop writing if I wanted to.” Catholic high school, Catholic college, a year or so at Vanderbilt, writing all the way. 

He moved to New York City. Patterson got a job at J Walter Thompson. The job was “hell” but “I’d write early in the morning, every morning. I’d lock my office door at lunchtime and write for half an hour. I’d write on the plane during every business trip. I’d write pages at four in the morning, and I’d write again until midnight. I refused to give up on myself.” 

He succeeded in New York City, rising through the ranks of J Walter Thompson. “Why? Because I chopped wood—I worked hard—and I could write. I could also write fast.” 

He wrote in New York City, finishing his first book. Then, he got “the best advice” from a fellow author, “Write another book. Start tonight”. So Patterson wrote. 

He sold in New York City. In 1993 he published the first Alex Cross novel. By 1996 he was just an author. 

And then he became ‘Starbucks’. 

At the same time I read James Patterson by James Patterson, Chat GPT became popular. The AI tool will reshape work. In Average is Over, Tyler Cowen writes about how the most successful chess teams are not computers or humans but humans using computers. Similarly, Chat GPT will not replace ‘knowledge workers’ but the best knowledge workers will use Chat GPT. 

That analogy makes sense.

Good organizations use leverage like people, money, and intellectual property to scale their operations. Technology companies are easy examples, but we’ve looked deeply at why Disney had to buy Pixar for the same reasons. 

That analogy makes sense. 

Except when it comes to writing. 

Patterson’s collaborations were icky, were too processed. But that’s the wrong analogy. 

Patterson writes an outline and has his collaborators fill it out. But don’t think “middle school notes”. Instead, think about a manager asking someone to start a new product. James starts the car, the collaborators run the race. 

It works because Patterson is mostly hands-off. Peter de Jonge wrote, “One of the best things about working with Jim, and this may be the key to why he is a publishing juggernaut, is that he is almost pathologically open-minded. If an idea adds stakes or drama or weight or in any helpful way propels the story forward, he’s game. As he told me once, you can tell any story you want, but it has to be a story.”

It reminded me of how Apple built the iPhone. Steve Jobs told the team what to do, they built it, reviewed it with Steve, got feedback, and built more. Jobs didn’t tell them how – well, sometimes he did and sometimes he was wrong – he just told them what. The same with Patterson. 

And this is great. Patterson’s book was fun. Reading should be fun. More Patterson books, more fun!