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For several years in a row, John Rowling, who introduced the world to the young wizard Harry Potter, has been ranked first in Forbes ranking as one of the richest women in the world. Today, JK Rowling's net worth is estimated at $1 billion.
Could an unemployed mother, whose husband literally kicked her out of the house with a child in her arms, dream about this?
lady.tochka.net recalls 10 facts from the life of JK Rowling.
1. JK Rowling was born on July 31, 1965 in a small town near Bristol. Her family raised three daughters. After leaving school, she studied French at the University of Exeter and trained for a year in Paris.
2. In 1990, JK Rowling moved to Portugal, where she worked as an English teacher. In the same year, she begins working on a novel about a boy wizard, Harry Potter.
3. In 1992, in Porto, JK Rowling married television journalist Georges Arantes. From this marriage they had a daughter, Jessica. But this marriage fell apart very quickly. As JK Rowling recalls, her husband literally kicked her and her daughter out of the house.
4. In 1994, Joan returned to the UK and lived with her sister in Edinburgh. At that time, the first Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was already ready.
5. In her rush to complete the Harry Potter book, JK Rowling is not looking for permanent job. An unemployed writer finishes her novel in Nicolson's cafe, which belonged to her relative.
6. In 1995, Joan makes her first attempt to publish the novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. She sends the manuscript to two literary agents at once. The first one returns the novel right away. The second, Christopher Little, is submitting the manuscript to the London publishing house Bloomsbury.
© Getty Images7. JK Rowling's first fee for Harry Potter was 1 thousand pounds sterling. This was an advance received from publisher Barry Cunningham in August 1996. The first circulation of "Harry Potter" was only 1 thousand copies. The book was noticed by critics, but most of the circulation went to children's libraries.
8. JK Rowling received a grant from The Scottish Art Council to write the second book about Harry Potter, and her literary agent managed to sell the rights to publish Harry Potter to the American agency Scholastic. Joan Rowling receives a huge advance for a newcomer - $105 thousand.
9. In 1998, the second Harry Potter novel was published. At the same time, Hollywood became interested in the story about the boy wizard: the first two films were released in 2001 and 2002. From this moment on, the victorious march of “Potter” begins around the world.
10. To date, JK Rowling has already released 7 novels about Harry Potter, claiming that this story is over. But it is possible that very soon we will be able to read the continuation of the story about the boy wizard.
Forbes magazine, which annually publishes lists of the richest people, claims that this moment Joan is no longer a billionaire.
Where did JK Rowling's fortune go?
As it turned out, the reason is banally simple and at the same time noble. 51-year-old Rowling spends impressive sums on charity, as well as on various taxes, which in the UK are not so small.
According to Forbes, total amount The writer's charitable spending over the past 20 years may exceed $160 million.
Despite lost status billionaire, JK Rowling does not regret it at all, but is only proud of her noble deeds. According to her, the writer received much more than she needed. Joan now feels it is her moral duty to use these funds wisely.
After such words and actions, people began to respect this talented writer. After all, Rowling is one of the few celebrities who actually helps people who are experiencing financial difficulties. And Joan does this sincerely, because once upon a time she was not rich at all.
Slumdog Billionaire
Shortly before "Harry Potter" brought JK Rowling world fame and colossal fees, she was barely making ends meet. And before that there was a difficult divorce process.
Joan did not fold her arms and continued to write. There were times when she wrote "Harry Potter" directly on napkins in a cafe. But she withstood all the difficulties and went from an unemployed single mother to the first author in history to earn a billion.
The main goal is to make the world a better place!
Journalists were very interested in what charitable purposes JK Rowling donated so much of her own money for. As it turns out, the beneficiaries include single-parent families, among others. From this money the parent is paid financial aid, and they are also provided with assistance in finding a job or training.
In addition, JK Rowling actively helps charities fighting child homelessness, illiteracy, poverty and multiple sclerosis.
She wrote three books specifically for such foundations: “The Tales of Beedle the Bard,” “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” and “Quidditch Through the Ages.” The sales of these books raised more than $30 million to charities for various causes.
As a result, due to her charity, JK Rowling is no longer a billionaire. Maybe someone would be upset about this, but not her. Rowling's name may no longer be on the Forbes magazine list, but her kindness and generosity could change the lives of many thousands of people, giving them hope.
JK Rowling is shining example how one person can inspire many. If everyone were as generous as she was, the world would certainly be a much better place.
Her name is actually Jo. But before the release of the first book about the young wizard Harry Potter, the publishers asked only for the initials J.K.Rowling to appear on the cover. In their opinion, a male audience might be put off by a book written by a woman. But after the story about a boy with a scar from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry sold millions of copies and became a bestseller, no one cared about the author’s gender—readers were waiting for a sequel.
Rowling has been writing since childhood. In interviews, she often says that she wrote her first fairy tale about Mr. Rabbit and Miss Bee at the age of 5 at the request of her younger sister. Already in primary school Rowling realized that her favorite subjects were literature and English language, and the teachers understood this too: her first stories were read out in front of the whole class, making her feel special. However, Rowling grew up shy and was remembered by her classmates as a girl who lived in a fantasy world and was constantly writing things down in her notebook.
When Jo was 15, her mother became ill with multiple sclerosis. After 10 years of battling the disease, Joanne Anne Rowling has died. This tragedy left a big mark on the writer. “My biggest regret is that my mother never found out that I became a writer. I never told her about Harry Potter, but she would definitely like it,” Rowling said in an interview with Oprah Winfrey. After the death of her mother, Joan decided to start her life with clean slate and went to teach English in Portugal, where she met her first husband. A year after their marriage, their daughter Jessica was born, and a few months later her husband kicked Rowling out of the house with a baby in her arms.
Without money, without work, without family, Rowling returned to Britain. She had not communicated with her father since the death of her mother, and only younger sister Di. The still unknown Rowling had literally hit rock bottom: she lived on an allowance of £70, which was barely enough to pay for a tiny apartment and the cheapest food. “I considered myself the biggest failure I knew,” Rowling describes her life at that time. The divorce led to a protracted depression, which, by the way, was embodied in the image of dementors - creatures from the fairy-tale universe of Potter who pull the soul and happy emotions out of people. In an interview with The Telegraph in 2006, Rowling admitted that death and the fear of death are the key to the Harry Potter books: the story begins with the death of the main character's parents and continues an irresistible desire Voldemort to become immortal.
According to rough estimates, Rowling now earns £77 per minute (approximately $120).
She receives income not only from the sale of copyrights to a series of books, but also from a number of other commercial enterprises, one way or another connected with Potter: royalties for films, income from the release of products depicting the characters she created, income from merchandising. In total, the writer earned £545 million (more than $1 billion) from the adventures of the magician - twice as much as John R.R. Tolkien on the stories of the hobbits. So it's hard to believe that the advance for the first book about a boy wizard, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, which was rejected by publishers 12 times, was only £1,500 (just over $2,300). Bloomsbury published the book only because the 8-year-old daughter of the head of the publishing house, Alice Newton, read the first chapter and immediately demanded a continuation from her father.
For the recently divorced writer, who lived with her one-year-old daughter on welfare, it was a victory. The editor of the manuscript, however, kindly advised Rowling to find a job because “children’s books are no longer selling.” First printing of Harry Potter and philosopher's stone"- only 1000 copies, and the publishing house sent 500 books free of charge to libraries. But this was enough for the novel to be recognized as “the best children's book of the year” in the UK. Rights to American edition The novel was bought at auction for $100,000. Rowling focused on continuing the Potter story and by 2004 became the richest woman in Great Britain.
Rowling's books take place in fictional world, which so closely resembles the real one: good here does not always triumph over evil. Maybe this is the secret of Potter's crazy popularity among both children and adults. Books are being swept off the shelves. The latter's circulation was sold out at a rate unprecedented in the history of book publishing - 7,000 copies per minute. In 2011, this allowed Rowling to become the world's first female author to earn $1 billion from her work.
Since then, she has not appeared on the list of billionaires - due to her extensive charitable activities and UK tax policy. However, Rowling ranked 84th on the list of highest-paid celebrities in 2014, 93rd on the list of the world's most powerful women the year before, and 7th in 2015.
18 years have passed since the release of the first Harry Potter book. Books from that edition, released in hardcover with a circulation of 1,000 copies, now sell for more than $30,000. During this time, Rowling wrote 9 more books about the wizarding world. The series became the best-selling series in history, second only to the Bible, and the film franchise based on it is the second largest worldwide box office ($7.723 billion for 8 films) after the world of Marvel superheroes ($8.783 billion for 12 films). The Harry Potter brand is valued at $15 billion. Rowling also continues to make money from sales electronic version a book for which only the website Pottermore.com, owned by the writer and opened in 2012, has the rights (it brought in $4 million in its first month of operation). There, the author communicates with fans of the series and posts new facts about the books for free access. By the way, she remains the only writer who won the rights from the publisher to sell an electronic version of her book.
In 2012, Rowling released a novel intended for teenage and adult audiences, “The Casual Vacancy” (the book became the top bestseller of 2012 in the United States in the “ fiction in paperback"). The advance for it was $8 million. In the first three days, sales of the book exceeded a million copies. The BBC bought the film rights to a series based on The Casual Vacancy, the first season of which was released in February this year. A little later, under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, two novels about detective Cormoron Strike were published - “The Cuckoo’s Calling” and “The Silkworm”. And, despite the fact that before the release of the second detective story the truth of the authorship was revealed, Rowling promised to continue publishing under a man’s name.
Rowling donates the lion's share of her salary to charitable projects. In the 1990s, she worked as a secretary in the research department of Amnesty International in London, where she first encountered refugees from Third World countries. This work left a serious imprint on later life Rowling, it was then that she came up with the idea for a Potter novel.
In 2000, she founded the Volant Charitable Trust, which fights poverty. The foundation funds various organizations that help children and single-parent families, as well as research into multiple sclerosis. Two books in the Harry Potter universe - Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch from Antiquity to the Present - brought in more than £15.7 million for another charity, Laughter Release, which also works on poverty issues. In 2005, Rowling co-founded the Children's High Level Group with MEP Emma Nicholson, which was later renamed Lumos. The Foundation is dedicated to creating acceptable conditions for the life and development of children around the world. To raise funds for Lumos in 2007, Rowling auctioned off one of seven handwritten copies of The Tales of Beedle the Bard (repeatedly mentioned in Potter), which was auctioned for £1.95 million (the buyer was the online retailer Amazon.com ) and became one of the most expensive books in history. Rowling donated all the proceeds from the sale of the book - about £19 million.
Rowling turns 50 on July 31, 2015. She is currently writing the screenplay for the film adaptation of the book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. A new book, “Career of Evil,” is promised for release in 2015. Just a few hours after the announcement of the new work, the book topped the list of popular pre-orders on Amazon. It also became known that Rowling's detective novels will form the basis of a series for BBC One.
In her 2008 Harvard commencement address, Rowling talked about how things don't always work out on the first try: “My greatest fear when I was your age was not poverty, but failure. There is no need to be afraid of failures - they are inevitable. It is impossible to live and not fail, unless you live so cautiously that you are, in fact, not living at all - in which case you obviously fail.”
According to Forbes magazine, writer JK Rowling is the owner of the most great fortune V literary world. Of course, the series of books about Harry Potter brought her the status of a billionaire, which, according to news reports, JK Rowling recently lost. Previously, no writer managed to become a billionaire, for example, one of the most popular writers modern Stephen King, was able to earn only 200 million dollars from his works. Brand "Harry Potter" different estimates, is worth between $21 and $24 billion.
It is curious that there was a moment in JK Rowling when the head of the publishing house warned the writer: “You can’t make money with children’s books, Joe...”. If only he knew how wrong he was. And he probably knows, because reports about JK Rowling’s condition often appear in the media around the world.
Although Lately Most of the writer’s life is not occupied, but, which is reflected both in her work and in her bank account. How much JK Rowling earned from her works is not known for certain. However foreign media They say that after all possible deductions of taxes, the writer’s fortune is about 640 million. True, as Rowling herself has stated more than once, in the summer of 2014 another work from the series of “adult books” will be published. Perhaps the proceeds from its sale will reach 9 figures. 
It is important to note that JK Rowling gave the lion's share of her fee to charity - about $160 million. It is this reason, according to researchers, that led to the loss of billionaire status. This is the first such case in Forbes stories. But this made it possible to purchase new status- “Kindness of the year”, however, is unspoken, which is sometimes more expensive than dry magazine statistics.
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One of the most famous writers on the planet, JK Rowling, was removed from the list of billionaires compiled by Forbes magazine. And the reason for this turned out to be the British woman’s desire to help people by spending millions of dollars on charity.
Joan is not after money
The British writer grew up in a poor family, and when she wrote her first book about a little wizard and his friends, she generally lived on unemployment benefits. That is why she donates huge amounts of money to those in need. After Rowling made her billion from the Harry Potter novels and was included in the list richest people According to Forbes magazine, who made their fortune solely thanks to their writing talent, Joan spent $160 million (16% of Rowling’s total wealth) on charitable purposes.
She once said these words in one of her interviews:
“I know very well how the poor live. I never had the desire to get rich, I never chased huge amounts of money. All rich people on this planet need to admit that having wealth when many are starving is wrong. We have a moral responsibility for getting far more than we need."Read also
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JK Rowling - famous philanthropist
In 2000, the writer founded the Volant Charitable Trust, a charity fighting social inequality and poverty. The foundation sponsors companies engaged in research in the field of various mental illnesses, and also helps children from single-parent families. In 2005, together with Emma Nicholson, a member of the European Parliament, Joan founded another charitable foundation- Lumos. This organization provides assistance to children from Eastern European countries.
In addition, JK Rowling writes books, the proceeds from the sale of which go to charitable companies. Thus, the proceeds from the sale of “The Tales of Beedle the Bard,” “Magical Creatures and Where to Find Them,” and “Quidditch Through the Ages,” which amounted to about $30 million, were completely given to those in need.
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