Bankrate: Some argue that you have an unfair advantage, having been head of the world's largest ad agency.

Patterson: And that's fine. Advertising can get you to try a product, but it can't get you to repurchase one, I've got to tell you. It's one thing if it's toothpaste, where you go, "Well, I've got to have toothpaste." You don't have to buy another James Patterson novel. And an awful lot of people keep buying the next one and telling their friends they've got to buy it.

Bankrate: So what about the co-writing? Some think you barely participate. What's the truth?

Patterson: I have a folder with about a thousand ideas for books and I'd love to write all of them, but obviously I can't. The reality is, I will write outlines, and the outlines are quite detailed; you read the outline and you really get the story. This allows me to get a lot of stories done that I wouldn't have gotten done. Generally what will happen is, the other person will write the first draft, I then will write all the subsequent drafts. It is not "he doesn't read them;" would that that was true! There have been as many as nine drafts, and when that happens, I WISH that I'd written the first draft.

Bankrate: Did you read as a child?

James Patterson: Not really, no. I think that is one of the reasons I'm interested in helping people spread the joy of reading. I was a good student, high school valedictorian and all that crap, but I didn't like to read much. I went to a Catholic high school in a small town in upstate New York and I guess the way they taught or something didn't work for me. To work my way through college, I worked at a mental hospital and I had a lot of free time working the night shift and I started reading like crazy. That's where I fell in love with it. Once I started reading things I wanted to read, from pretty serious stuff like Jean Genet and Gunter Grass to American humorists like Thomas Berger and Bruce Jay Friedman. That really got me into reading. From that point, I started scribbling and I liked that, too. Somebody said you're lucky if you find something you like to do in life, and then it's a miracle if somebody will pay you to do it.

Bankrate: Were your parents in the arts?

Patterson: My mother's a teacher. My father always wanted to write, I just don't think he had the guts to try to do it, given that he had to make a living and that was difficult. He drove a bread truck for a long time and then he sold insurance and moved up in management at Prudential. But when he retired at 59, he sat down and wrote a novel. It didn't get sold, but I thought it was pretty good.