WALLIAMS JOINS £100M BOOK CLUB
Comic & BGT judge joins the likes of JK Rowling as top-earning kids’ author
DAVID Walliams has joined Harry Potter writer JK Rowling in the £100million league of top-earning British children’s authors.
The Britain’s Got Talent judge has made the nine-figure sum in 11 years since his first book The Boy In the Dress was published in 2008, according to the Bookseller trade magazine.
The 48-year-old comedian – whose latest book The Beast of Buckingham Palace was published yesterday – is estimated to have made more than £17million last year alone.
His bestseller is Gangsta Granny, which spent 21 consecutive weeks as the children’s No1 in 2013 and has sold 1.35million copies in paperback alone.
Others include 2016 hit The Midnight Gang, 2017’s Bad Dad, and last year’s The Ice Monster.
Walliams said earlier this month that he writes
“one novel a year, a novella a year, a book of short stories a year and a picture book a year”.
He told BritishTheatre.com: “I’m always writing them. It never ends. As soon as I finish one, I know I’ve got to start the next one.”
He added: “I was very affected seeing that first book of mine in print, so beautifully put together with Quentin Blake’s illustration on the cover.
“Television, as much as I love making it, is quite ephemeral. A book has a lot more life, more permanence to it. And they’re beautiful objects in themselves. Because of all that, I really enjoyed the process and it made me want to write more.”
Other kids’ authors in the £100million club include The Gruffalo writer Julia Donaldson and Tracy Beaker author Jaqueline Wilson.