The World's Highest-Paid Authors 2016: James Patterson, Jeff Kinney and J.K. Rowling Top Ranking - Forbes

To wit: Zoo, a thriller from the inescapable James Patterson, scored a second season on CBS CBS -0.43%, while Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin benefited from clamorous interest in the hit HBO series based on his fantasy novels.

Patterson topped our list for the third straight year, earning $95 million pretax, while children%u2019s author Jeff Kinney placed a distant second, earning $19.5 million.

"I wrote the first Diary of a Wimpy Kid for adults," Kinney, the highest-ranked kids author, told FORBES. "The whole time I thought I was writing comics for grownups, and then my publisher told me I had actually written a children's series."