Writers and the Winner-Take-All Economy

A possible subtitle might be "Why Do I Bother Getting Out of Bed in the Morning?"I just read this item about Forbes' newly-released list of our top-earningest authors, and I can't say that it didn't depress me. I clicked through to the Forbes article and was made even crankier when I saw that they didn't supply an actual list, just a slide show. No wonder no one buys books anymore! Anyway, here's who my competition is.Author/2010 Earnings (in millions)James Patterson $84Danielle Steele $35Stephen King $28Janet Evanovich $22Stephanie Meyer $21Rick Riordan $21Dean Koontz $19John Grisham $18Jeff Kinney $17Nicholas Sparks $16Ken Follett $14Suzanne Collins $10J.K. Rowling $ 5