Money Moguls

J.K. Rowling is living everything but a mundane lifestyle. She has cruised the Galapagos islands for $25,000, tossed $22,000 on a vacation in Mauritius and lounged around in a $10,000/week hotel in Seychelles.

She attended a charity engagement in New York with her family and stayed in a 7 bedroom beach front house in the Hampton’s for a mere $140,000 per week.

J.K. Rowling is earning about $1.7 million every 3 days. She has a portfolio of real estate in Edinburgh, Perthshire and Kensington. Her home is a 13 bedroom house worth $3.5 million. J.K. Rowling now flies in a private jet and wears designer dresses by Vivienne Westwwod. She has a personal bodyguard to protect her and her family. The bodyguard’s salary is $260,000 per year. This is very different from her life before Harry Potter!

Here’s her story:

We have all heard stories about rags to riches, but the one about J.K.Rowling will leave anyone spell bound. From struggling to make ends meet, and the struggle to survive as a single mother, she became the most sought after writer. She was born on the 31st of July, 1965 in England. Her real name is Joanne Murray Rowling, but she writes under the name J.K.Rowling.

She is the author and creator of Harry Potter and its series of books. It can be undoubtedly claimed as the most popular children’s character created till date. No other book has ever sold as fast as the last four books of the Harry Potter series worldwide. It is also believed that it even collected more money than many big budget Hollywood films on the opening weekend.

J.K.Rowling has a lot of wealth that is estimated at about 550 million pounds. This makes her the thirteenth richest woman in England, and the 136th richest person in the country of England. Being noted by Forbes is indeed an honor, and the writer was honored with the title of the second richest female entertainer in the world.

The female author has one sister, and she started her writing when she was very young. She would write plenty of stories and narrate them to her sister. There is always inspiration for any writer, and so it is with J.K.Rowling. She was influenced by her headmaster’s personality to create Dumbledore’s character in the Harry Potter series.

The author attended a university in Paris where she studies French, but she was keen on pursuing English. It was in 1990 on a train journey to London, when she was struck with the idea of creation of a young boy. And she though if the boy attended wizard school, it would make the character more interesting.

In the year 1993 she had a child, with a Portuguese television journalist whom she had married. Unfortunately their relation did not work out, and she moved back to Scotland from Portugal. She wanted to live near her sister and thus the move. She was unemployed for a long time, and she had only her state benefits to support her.

She however continued writing her first novel. It was known that she would sit for hours at cafes to do her writing. Her book was initially rejected by all the publishing houses. She called the book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Christopher Little Literary Agents were representing her, and this was after the book was given to a reader, and they had gotten positive feedback.

A publisher called Bloomsbury finally recognized her work and she was paid an advance of 1500 pounds in the year 1996. This happened because the daughter of the publisher was impressed with the writing, and they instantly decided to publish it. The Scottish Arts Council paid the author an amount of 8,000 pounds as a grant for her to continue writing.

In the year 1997 the publishing house Bloomsbury printed about one thousand copies initially. They were also distributed in libraries. Within a few months, J.K.Rowling was winning many awards for her work. It started with the Nestle Smarties Book Prize, British Book Award for best children’s book and the Children’s Book Award.

She won these awards three times in a row, as by then she had continued writing sequels to the book. There are about seven books in the entire series, and they have been translated into 65 languages. No other book in the history of writing has ever sold so many books as soon as it has been published.

Warner Bros., the reputed Hollywood film production house purchased the rights to the books to turn them into films for a huge amount. The first film was released in the year 2001. The author made millions from the sales of all her seven-book rights to the studio. She has many expensive estates in England, but at the same time does her part with charity.

She is a part of donating money towards organizations that support multiple sclerosis, and also contributes to many orphanages. She is known as the only billionaire who made money from writing books. From simple stories when she was a child, J.K.Rowling can now take credit for being the creator of the most popular children’s character ever.

Harry Potter has millions of fans worldwide, and the surprising part is that the fan following includes teenagers and adults too. This is indeed an achievement for the author.