E.L. James, British author of the highly successful trilogy and Twilight fan fiction Fifty Shades of Grey, came out at the top of Forbes' Top-Earning Authors list. Her literary phenomenon based on a kinky sex and love story between fictional characters Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele gave birth to a pop-culture hit with a movie adaptation in the works.

According to Forbes, E.L. James has become the fastest-selling author in history after 70 million copies of Fifty Shades of Grey were sold in the first eight months since its release. Ms. James earned $95 million in a year, from June 2012 to June 2013. She will also reportedly earn $5 million from the movie adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey. The film outfit is expected to show the book's movie adaptation in theatres on August 2014.

The second spot on the list of top-earning authors belongs to James Patterson who earned $91 million mostly from his Maximum Ride and Witch & Wizard series. The third top-earning author is Suzanne Collins at $55 million from her Hunger Games trilogy. Hunger Games is a dystopian-themed young adult series with the second part of the trilogy's film adaptation, Catching Fire, to be shown in cinemas on November 2013.

Other top-earning book authors who made it to Forbes' list were Bill O'Reilly with $28 million from Killing Lincoln and Killing Kennedy, consistent best-selling romance author Danielle Steel with $26 million, Dan Brown with $22 million for highly controversial and conspiracy-themed books and horror-suspense king, Stephen King with $20 million in earnings.

Although J.K. Rowling, author of the popular Harry Potter series is far behind on the list, she managed to earn $13 million in 2012. Despite the end of her Harry Potter books, she managed to stay on the readers' radar by publishing The Casual Vacancy and surprise hit thriller novel, The Cuckoo's Calling. Ms. Rowling used the pseudonym Robert Galbraith for that book.