James Patterson dishes on his new legal thriller, ‘The #1 Lawyer’

Episode Notes

Transcript

Lee Rawles:

Welcome to the Modern Law Library. I’m your host, the ABA Journals. Lee Rawles, and today I have with me author James Patterson here to discuss his new book, the Number One Lawyer written with Nancy Allen. James, thanks so much for joining us.

James Patterson:

Yeah, this is good to be here. I love to talk to lawyers. Love it.

Lee Rawles:

Well, I think that they’ll love listening to it right off the bat, the number one lawyer. This is a new main character for you. Do you see this being part of a series and can you give people an idea about what sparked the idea for this book?

James Patterson:

Well, I’ll give you what idea sparked the book for me is I am a total junkie for books about lawyers, movies about lawyers, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So if you go way back to Kill a Mockingbird, 12 Angry Men inherit the Wind, the K Mutiny. My father, when I was eight years old, took me to the K Mutiny movie, which at eight I was like, I don’t know, but I loved it. Anyway, then you get sort of the next iteration with the Verdict, which I loved. A few Good Men presumed innocent, primal Fear, jagged Edge, but a trial played a big part in the movie. So those are a little more, and then we have all the Grisham stuff that I liked a lot. So I’m really big on all the lawyer stuff. I think it’s one of the pure forms of drama, Courtroom stuff, good and evil, the justice, the injustice.

I think that the trials are better than prize fights or shootout at the Okay Corral. It’s always interesting and dramatic and wonderful, and I am just obsessed with it. And that’s what sort of got me doing this kind of book. Hopefully people really, really enjoyed It’s Meant to Be an Entertainment. I write them with Nancy Allen, who is an attorney and also a novelist. She was assistant Missouri Attorney General at one point. She’s had 30 or 40 cases. She’s done murder trials, et cetera, et cetera. So she kind of keeps me honest and we do these things together. No, I think people will get a kick out of it. So anyway, that’s kind of what drove me into this.

Lee Rawles:

Well, and you named some of my favorite other legal things, 12 Angry Men. That was the first black and white movie I ever saw, and I was enthralled. And as I read the Number one lawyer, I did think that at various points I’m like, oh, is this an homage? There were

James Patterson:

No, it’s just just stealing stuff, no homage. Yeah. See, in Hollywood they call it homage when they just steal stuff and in books they call it plagiarism. So I hope I’m not doing any plagiarism or homage in there. I don’t think so. Certainly. Yeah, I don’t think so. What a thing to say to an audience of lawyers.

Lee Rawles:

I was about to say, James, this is going to get you in trouble just talking about the number one lawyer. We’ve mentioned all these classic legal fiction things that you love, and we start with a character who does feel kind of iconic. His name is Stafford Lee Penny, and he’s an attorney in Biloxi and he is unquote the number one attorney in Southern in that area. In that area. He got his face on the cover of a bar, Association magazine and with this label, and he’s never lost a case. So we start out with him in this kind of position, and I don’t want to do any spoilers in this conversation, but when you’re giving people the elevator pitch about this novel, how do you describe it? How much information do you give out?

James Patterson:

I don’t do the elevator pitch. What a terrible thing to do is somebody trapped in an elevator with you. I will give you a sense of, we just did a commercial, so this will be in a way sort of an elevator pitch. So we’ll think of it as a radio commercial, and what we have is a handsome man in his late thirties, think of a younger Matthew McConaughy, and he’s walking toward camera and he’s wearing a prison jumpsuit and he’s got hand and ankle cuffs on and the voiceover goes, that’s Stafford Lee Penny. He’s the best lawyer in the country, undefeated. He’s headed to court. He’s on trial for murdering his beautiful wife in cold blood. Reed. James Patterson’s the number one lawyer. You’re going to love this book, by the way. He didn’t do it. Yeah, exactly. That’s right. We need the sound effects in there. Perfect. But in terms of an elevator pitch, there it is. He’s a really talented lawyer, has undefeated, and then he actually winds up going on trial for murdering our character in the book, not his wife. So the commercial is incorrect, but like that,

Lee Rawles:

And it opens with him before the murders happen, and it’s multiple murders before that all goes down. He is trying a case that has raised a lot of emotions and anger in Biloxi. He’s up against a prosecutor who is a reader. I think that he respects this man a lot, but they’re up against each other and they’re trying to find each other’s. James. Yeah, Henry Gordon

James Patterson:

James. That’s one of his prime opponents. Absolutely.

Lee Rawles:

And they’re each trying to find the other’s weakness, and there’s definitely a battle back and forth there. One thing that really struck me, and I think our audience of lawyers and people interested in legal fiction will be pleased to hear, it does seem that you consulted a lot of experts on actual trial procedure. This is not one of those books where someone who picks it up and knows how court cases goes will be like, oh, well, that’s not right. That’s not right. Oh, that’s not how that happens.

James Patterson:

That’s not even close. That’s not even close. Yeah, they do that in television, but that’s once again, that’s why the collaboration is important in the collaboration with Nancy Allen because Nancy, she is a trial lawyer, so she does know how it works, and we take some liberties, but not too much. And that’s also in some of my collaborations, it’s the same thing when I’ve done the books with Bill Clinton, president Clinton, and he brings information and he makes it all real. So if I’ll write something about the secret surface, go, well, they wouldn’t do that, but they might do this. Or when I wrote a book Rose Run with Dolly Parton and same thing, she would say, well, here’s what would happen in this recording studio, or Here’s how it really does work in terms of getting a song from writing it to becoming a big hit, stuff like that. And I think readers like that, and I think what you’re pointing out is one of the reasons that people listening will enjoy the book because it is going to ring pretty true. We do take some liberties, but not too much.

Lee Rawles:

And just to name check four attorneys who you do thank at the end of your book, it sounds like James l Farrier, iii, Corbin Gunn, Morley, s Swingle, and John Quist. Shout out to them because they helped you with trial practice and procedure, evidentiary foundation, criminal law, that sort of thing. So there was definitely was research here. I love that you brought up the collaborative writing. Lawyers do an awful lot of collaborative writing, and I don’t think it would be hyperbole to say that you are an author, at least in the English language, who may have done more collaborative writing than any other novelist out there.

James Patterson:

I don’t know if that’s accurate, but I’m one of the ones that admits when I’m collaborating and some of them, oh, that’s

Lee Rawles:

A good

James Patterson:

Point. Don’t admit it, which is kind of fascinating, but collaboration. Listen, the Sistine Chapel, you had what, 2030 painters up there doing the Sistine Chapel, some of them pretty famous. If our world is going to get saved, it’s going to be because we start collaborating and trusting one another. The vaccine, whether you believe in it or don’t believe it, there was a lot that was a lot of collaboration in terms of getting that thing done in a year. Most television shows are collaborations. We have a new Alice Cross series coming from Amazon this year, and it’s a typical writer’s room, like eight writers. So there’s a lot of collaboration going on in a lot of places, but people just don’t talk about it as much. But it isn’t an odd thing, but you’re right. Yes, lawyers do collaborate a lot, but it’s a good thing I couldn’t do, obviously the number of books that I do, if I did collaborate on some of them,

Lee Rawles:

What I’m hoping to get from you is some tips because I think that lawyers who are working on a case together or clerks who are writing an opinion for a judge, I’m sure that there are ways to approach your co-writers that are more productive or less productive.

James Patterson:

One of the things is outline, outline, outline, whatever you’re going to write. Every book that I do, every collaboration, there’s a 60 to 80 page outline that I will write. I then will go to the collaborator and I say, I want your help on this. I do want their help A and B. Sometimes if they only add one or two things, they’ll go, okay, now it works for me. So they’re emotionally involved, which is really important. Listening is huge. I did a collaboration with Lisa, who’s one of the more famous writers from Sweden, mystery writers, and it was interesting because you do a book in the us it’s hard to get reviews or get people interested. I went over to Sweden and we had 46 interviews. Lisa and I, unlike the interviews in the us, they actually had interesting questions about history and sociology, et cetera, et cetera.

But the one thing that they kept asking about was how could the Sweden American ever get along? And I said there were two things. One is we had respect for one another’s writing, and secondly, and most important, we listen. And unfortunately that’s one of the problems in Hollywood, they don’t listen. I remember asking about Gary, the bad guy in a long came a spider and how do you pronounce his name? And I said, well, it’s Gary Ji. So of course in the movie it’s Gary Soji, after they asked me, which is fine, but that’s kind of the Hollywood thing in general. They don’t want to collaborate with the novelist mostly. And I think the reason for, and unfortunately out there, the screenwriters tend to be at the bottom of the heap and they already have 10 people they’re listening to that they don’t want to listen to, and the last thing they want is then to have the novelists come out there and be the 11th person that they have to listen to.

So I kind of get it and I’m in sympathy with the screenwriters out there, but to get back to your question about making your writing better, the thing about an outline, it’s so much easier to do an outline than it is the last thing you want to do is write a novel and get done with it and it’s 400 pages and took a year and a half, and then you bring it into the editor and they go, this isn’t what I was thinking about. This isn’t what I was hoping for. You really want to deal with it at the outline stage or a third of a way through the outline. I think that’s really important and useful. Certainly anybody who wants to write a book, I would encourage them to consider the long outline because it’s just so much easier to do and so much easier to correct.

Lee Rawles:

Well, the importance of an outline that is huge

James Patterson:

And we learn it. We learn it in grade school, but we don’t pay attention.

Lee Rawles:

We’re going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors when we come back. I’ll still be speaking with James Patterson. Welcome back to the Modern Law Library. I’m your host, Lee Rawles, speaking with James Patterson about his new book, the Number One Lawyer You and I are speaking on March 12th. It’s going to be released in several days, and our listeners are going to get to hear this episode March 20th. So that is the timing. It’s available now to all of you out there listening. But you said something intriguing a few minutes ago, which was that there is a new Alex Cross series and Alex Cross. I bet a lot of people are tuning into this episode, hoping to hear more about that. So could you talk a little bit about what’s next for Alex Cross and this

James Patterson:

Series? Yeah, it’s Prime Video. I’m not exactly sure the date. I think it’ll be late in the year. I think they haven’t announced it yet, but that’s my suspicion. I’m really delighted with it. It’s edgier than the books. They tested it and it was one of the highest testing things they’ve ever done, so people really like it, which is good. I really like it. The film is good. Even though it’s our episodes, it feels like movies, a lot of small movies, the Bad Guy in it is a really good actor and a good part for the actor to play. Yeah, the movies. I thought Morgan Freeman’s great, so you can’t beat him. The actual movies I thought could have been better. I think this series is the best of the film treatments on Alice Cross so far. It’s really good. They just did a terrific job.

Lee Rawles:

To pivot a little bit, I would love to talk about your writing for younger people for Kids and the Maximum Ride Series. Part of the reason I’m bringing this up is that Maximum Ride got caught up in some book banning efforts in Florida. Would love to hear you talk a little bit about that movement and about the importance of writing for children and how we talk to children and write for children.

James Patterson:

Yeah, write to ’em the same way you write to adults. Respect them. Tell ’em stories. They love stories, they love good stories. So just like adults, I write to them the same way I write to adults. I mean, we don’t murder people in the books and we don’t curse, but other than that, it’s the same thing. Don’t write down to them. They get it. They can follow stories and they’re critical. And I mean that’s just one of the keys. And I love writing for kids in terms of the book, banning Every parent should have the right to be involved with what your kids are reading. But I don’t want, as a parent, I don’t want strangers to basically make decisions about what people in my family should and shouldn’t read. I don’t want that to happen. And I think no matter where people are, if they’re libertarians or whatever it is, I mean they kind of believe in that.

They don’t want people, they don’t want the government messing around with what they do. They want to make their own decisions. And I think that’s an important part of this. People need to be able to make their own decisions about what their kids are reading. And if your kid is seven years old and they bring home the Hunger Games, you have every right to say, I don’t think you’re old enough for that yet. You’re not ready. But I do think for most of us that we can figure out what our kids should be reading and we should be involved just like we should be involved with what movies they’re going to see. And there’s no library that there is. That’s dangerous. I mean compared to what the internet, you kidding?

Lee Rawles:

YouTube

James Patterson:

And the idea in some states that and scare tactics if nothing else, that we’re going to put librarians and booksellers in jail because they have certain books in there that somebody doesn’t agree with. Maximum. Maximum Rise has been written read by over 30 million kids around the world and all of a sudden in one of the counties in Florida, one woman went in who had not read Maximum Ride and she made us stink about it and it got pulled out of all these schools. That’s like crazy. It just shouldn’t operate that way. She hadn’t even read the things and there’s nothing, there’s no sex and Maximum ride, there’s no cursing, there’s nothing that you would object to. And that wouldn’t matter if there was, it still shouldn’t be pulled out of the libraries Every once in a while if somebody wrote a book, how to Be a Nazi at Attend, get it out of the library. But that should be rare. It should be rare that we have a book that should get pulled. It should just not happen all the time. And it is just a bad thing we’re doing. If people would think it through, most of ’em would come to similar conclusions. Just think it through.

Lee Rawles:

And I was a big reader as a kid. I imagine you were too given you got your degrees in English literature. And I know that I read books at a time when I was too young to actually understand some of the themes in them, et cetera, or got a mistaken impression and then it was kind of up to my parents to talk to me about it. I read Gone With the Wind when I was eight. I shouldn’t have read Gone With the Wind when I was eight.

James Patterson:

Depends on the 8-year-old. It depends on the 8-year-old. Some eight year olds can handle stuff. Can handle it.

Lee Rawles:

I

James Patterson:

Agree with you in general. But yeah,

Lee Rawles:

And when I say shouldn’t have read it, I mean I didn’t understand everything that the author was trying to convey and I didn’t have the of

James Patterson:

Don’t understand what the authors are writing. Exactly. Look at some of this stuff.

Lee Rawles:

And so it was up to the adults in my life to have conversations about it. Do

James Patterson:

You understand? I still don’t understand it,

Lee Rawles:

James Joyce. Oh, it makes an excellent leveler for an uneven table. Yeah. So no, I absolutely agree with you when it comes to that’s on the adults in the kids’ life to help them out if they’re confused by something that they’re reading,

James Patterson:

No, it’s really important. I’m writing a book now about how to be a better dad and you should read to your kids and then at a certain point they should read to you and you should be involved in what they’re doing. You should be involved in what they’re reading. That’s a good thing.

Lee Rawles:

Absolutely. And you have been involved in a number of literacy efforts. Would you like to talk about that? I think that that’s so important. Well,

James Patterson:

Yeah, sure. Look, the thing in the country right now, it’s something like 43% of the kids in this country are reading at grade level. And that is a tragedy. That is a tragedy and it’s preventable. I work with the University of Florida, and this is not their my program. It’s their program. They have a program, we have the vaccine, we have the vaccine now they have a program, they can get that number up into the high seventies, and it’s in about a third of the counties in Florida. It’s spread like wildfire in Canada. I don’t know how it got picked up there, but it did. And that program that getting kids being able to read at grade level, being competent, becoming competent readers, that means eventually they’ll be able to go to high school, they’ll be able to have more choices in their life and it will save lives.

It will save hundreds, maybe thousands of lives because kids who maybe would’ve dropped out of school and gotten in trouble, they’ll be able to get through school. So it’s hugely important, and I don’t understand actually why it hasn’t spread even faster than it is. We’re about to embark on a series of classrooms around the country where teachers will be able to go in and check out the system and see how it works in terms of getting kids reading at grade level. And it’s painless. And the rewards are incredible for the kids and for the teachers because if you can take your class and they can go from half the class running a grade level to 80% of the kids running a grade level, that’s great for you as a teacher. It is very rewarding and really good for your class and really good for these kids who are going to have a better chance to succeed in life. If you can’t read competently, that makes it harder for sure to go through life and more of those kids are going to wind up in trouble than would have.

Lee Rawles:

We’re going to take a break to hear from our advertisers when we return. I’ll still be speaking with James Patterson about his book, the Number One Lawyer. Welcome back to the Modern Law Library. Jim, you mentioned how much you enjoy reading and watching all these legal fiction shows and how about nonfiction? I’m interested in what you watch when it comes to documentaries or any of the cases that you’ve found particularly interesting. Well,

James Patterson:

I got involved in the Epstein thing, obviously the current one is I’m actually doing a book with Vicki Ward on the Murders in Idaho and a documentary, the documentary is almost finished the, for students who were killed at the University of Idaho in Moscow. And the book we’re about 20% into the book, but the documentary is coming and it’ll be a while for the trial I believe. But it is a fascinating case. And what we’re going to try to do there with the book is a little of the feeling that you got for in Cold blood. I’m not going to compare what we’re doing to in Cold Blood, but rather than glorifying or a tremendous interest in the alleged murderer, we’ll deal with him, but also the people in that town will never be the same. The kids in the two colleges being University of Idaho and Washington State, they will never be the same.

And once a trial gets there, it’s going to get even worse. The prosecutor, they will never be the same. The police chief, never be the same. Those families will never be the same. The kids obviously a tragic loss of four young people. So that fascinates me in terms of true crime. The first one I got involved in was with Jeffrey Epstein. I wrote a book called Filthy Rich and a friend of mine who is a journalist down here, we were out drinking one night as all good things happened and we started talking about the Epstein case, and I wasn’t familiar with it at that point. It had been, I think in 2008. And we had done a documentary which won a couple of Emmy’s, about one of the small towns down here, and then my hometown, Newburgh, New York. At that point, Newburgh was ranked the six most violent small town in America, and Bell Glade down here was ranked the most violent small town in America.

So we did a documentary called The Murder of a Small Town, and we were thinking of doing another documentary and he told me about the Epstein case, and I went, wow, I’d rather write a book about this because around the country people don’t know about it. So I wrote the book or Tim and I wrote Tim Jones and I wrote the book, Tim Jones Malloy. It was really interesting because we took it out or I took it out and it was a big bestseller, but we couldn’t get it covered anywhere. The only places that covered it were the Wall Street Journal and the Miami Herald. And everybody else says, what’s the big deal about this? I go, what’s the big deal? What are you kidding? This billionaire has had dozens and dozens of young girls, some as old as young as 14 years old, and how can you see?

And then he got 13 months, he was out in 11 months and he got out every day till six o’clock at night on work release, which is crazy. This is an insane story. As I say, the book did really well. But the story eventually broke in, I think 2018. And it was weird because some of these young women had gotten a lawyer and the lawyer wanted publicity. So he had these women talk to the Miami Herald, and there was a series, it was a good series about the women, but what broke the story was Acosta who had been involved in the sentencing of these women, Acosta lawyer down there. He had been appointed by President Trump. I don’t remember exactly what the post was, but that was the story. All of a sudden they go, oh my God, Acosta Trump on Trump’s cabinet. And so that became a big story. Suddenly everybody was covering it. Now, most people who heard about the story, they could care less about Acosta, but they went, well, what about this billionaire with all these young girls? Oh my God. And that’s what made the story this monster story. And when the documentary ran on Prime video, and this is extraordinary in terms of the power of Netflix, but a hundred million people watched it in the first week. And I mean, it’s just amazing how many people watch things on some of the streamers.

Lee Rawles:

I can’t let you off this interview without hearing more about Dolly Parton, who I adore and run Rose Run. What was it like working with Dolly?

James Patterson:

Once again, this is this whole area of collaboration and with the number one lawyer, Nancy Allen is my Dolly Parton. She’s my, I’m going to keep you honest. She’s my authority figure. And that’s why I think the book reads so well because of Nancy and with Run Rose Run Dolly, she’s my Nancy Allen, and she kept me honest and she was a great cheerleader of her thing and a great co-writer. And I went down to Nashville, I went to Vanderbilt, so I liked Nashville anyway, and Dolly and I met up and we spent a couple of hours in the office and we made the deal just the two of us. No agents, no lawyers, no bs. We just made the deal in our office. We liked each other, we knew what we wanted to do. We knew we wanted to do the book. Originally I wanted, I said, do you want to maybe do a children’s book?

And then I had a little bit of an outline for Run Rose Run, and she said, no, no, I’d like to do the adult book. That’d be great. She said, when we were there, she said, I’ve written thousands of country Western songs. She said, I can write one standing on my head, want to see, which was very funny line. And she is very funny. And anyway, I went home and I left her just as brief outline. And two days later, she sent me her notes on the outline, and she’s also written seven songs for the book. And at that point, we hadn’t even discussed whether we were put songs in the book, but she had already knocked off seven songs for the, that’s how, I mean, she’s like me. I have this thing that my grandmother taught me. Hungry Dogs run faster and Dolly’s a hungry dog like me.

We’re both hungry dogs. So we got along great. We’re still really good friends. The first year we were working together, she called me on the phone and it was my birthday, and she sang Happy Birthday over the phone to me. And what I wanted to do was say, Dolly, I want you to call again and I’m not going to pick up and you’re going to get voicemail, and would you mind saying Happy birthday again on the voicemail? So I’ll have it, but I didn’t have the nerves, so I didn’t ask you to do that. We went on tour. We were in Austin, Texas, and it was a big auditorium, but seven, 8,000 people. And I had another birthday coming when this was a little later, obviously. And she looked out to the people and she said, James’ birthday is coming up. Let’s sing Happy Birthday to him. So she led 7,000 people singing Happy Birthday to me out in Austin, Texas. But we’ve had a lot of fun with all this stuff. I think the movie got curtailed a little bit because of the strikes, but maybe something will happen there, but we’ll see.

Lee Rawles:

And anyone who wants to listen to those songs, she did release a companion album with the book, did 12. Oh yeah, yeah,

James Patterson:

Yeah. 12 songs. No, that was very special and fun. Yep, yep, yep.

Lee Rawles:

Well, back to the number one lawyer, I do think that if you were wanting to leave Stafford Lee Penny, where he is at the end of the book, that’s still a very complete story, but do you think there’ll be further adventures that you and Nancy Wright,

James Patterson:

There will be other adventures. I’m not sure if it’ll be Stafford Lee, but we’ll see. We’ll, we’re working on something now. We did do the number three juror, juror number three before that, which is also fun. And I think we’re looking at movie. Somebody just bought the rights to that. So we’ll see what happens with that. But that’s a pretty good story too. And Nancy’s great to work with. She’s really very special.

Lee Rawles:

You said that you think of Stafford Lee as kind of a younger McConaughey type. Are there other roles in the book that you have in your head? You’ve got sort of a head canon of, oh, I think that this person would be like this.

James Patterson:

I try not to do that. Actually today. It’s interesting. Later today I have another book, which is about a lawyer as well. And this is a really fun read for people. After you finish the number one lawyer or maybe before it, it’s called 12 Months to Live. And the character in that, Jane, well, I originally want to call it Jane Effing Smith, and she’s a defense lawyer. She was for a brief time, she was an NYPD cop, and then she was a private investigator while she was working her way through law school. She played hockey for Boston College. She’s really tough and she’s unbelievably funny. And I think she’s the best character that I’ve done since Alice Cross, maybe better than Alice Cross. I did it with Mike Luka. Mike is in the sports writer Hall of Fame, and he’s one of my best friends, and it’s just a lot of fun to work with.

And right today in Hollywood, we’re out there pitching. I think we’re going to prime video today, the day we’re talking. So we’ll see what happens there. And we have a star, I can’t release her name, but she’s won Academy Awards attached to it. And David E. Kelly, who I believe has a law degree, and he’s one of the best showrunners in the business, and he’s attached to do the show running. And then one of the writers, very good writers from Ozark, one of the two head writers. So I think it’s a great package. So see what happens here. But there is a really cool trial in that it’ll be a streaming series, I think. And it’s really a cool notion for a book series because the first one’s called 12 Months to Live. And then I don’t know about the titles, but the second book, which will be a year later, is eight Months to Live.

And the third one, a year later will be four months to live. And what happens in this book is Jane, very early in the book, one of her best friends is her doctor, and the doctor tells you she has 12 months to live. Jane is such a tiger. She says, I won’t accept that until she bargains for 16 months. And that’s just pure Jane. And so one of the things here is we all know at some point our time will pass, but Jane really does know, and she’s not going gentle. She’s funny and she’s a fighter, and we’ll see what the hell happens at the end.

Lee Rawles:

Well, and if you’ve ever met hockey players, they’re fun and feisty.

James Patterson:

Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, no, she’s one of those. If the puck was stuck in a corner, she’s coming out with it.

Lee Rawles:

Well, you have said before that you really think of yourself as a storyteller. And certainly storytelling is what lawyers have to do a lot of. And in the number one lawyer, I do think that you don’t get to get inside the head of Henry Gordon James, but you do get to get inside the head of Stafford Lee Penny. And in my opinion, you’re seeing both of them. They’ve both got a hold of these events and they’re tugging back and forth about who’s going to be the one to tell this story. And I do think that that is a really insightful way to look at what prosecutors and defense attorneys are trying to do. So I think you

James Patterson:

Great.

Lee Rawles:

You and Nancy really hit on something there, but yeah, so where can people go who want to find out more about the projects that you have coming out or to pick up the number one lawyer or 12 months to live? Well,

James Patterson:

They know where to find books. They’re smart people. They’ve all gone undergraduate and law school. They know where they buy their books. So wherever you buy your books, lawyers, smart people and other people. Yeah, I mean, you can go online right now, even before the book is literally and pre-order in it. It’ll be there the day the book comes out, or your local, your Indie or Barnes and Noble Walmart. I don’t want to leave anybody out. I already did. But yeah,

Lee Rawles:

And I think your publishers would like me to mention that you have a newsletter that you can sign up [email protected]. Sure.

James Patterson:

James patterson.com. You can go there if you want to learn at least what I do as a writer, you can go to masterclass. And actually, it’s one of the highest rated things that they have, including a bunch of writers that do them. Apparently the class is not as good as mine, but good class. And the thing about it is, all I’m going to do, I’m going to tell you what I do, and I’m not giving people advice on what they should do, but this is what I do. And you may find some of it useful, but the thing is that the things you shake your head at ignore because you already know that the things that you’re shaking your head know at are the things you need to consider because those are the things you aren’t doing if you want to get better. It’s always going to be stuff that you aren’t doing now. But it’s interesting and I think useful for people that want to write.

Lee Rawles:

Well, thank you so much, James. It’s been such a pleasure. And thank you to my listeners for joining us for this episode. And if you enjoyed this episode, please free review and subscribe in your favorite podcast listening service.