

To date, the book has sold over 80 million copies worldwide, and its success has helped power sales for Brown’s earlier books. Rowling’s highly anticipated Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Released in 2003, The Da Vinci Code was a huge commercial success and was outsold only by J. While his first three novels - Digital Fortress, Angels & Demons and Deception Point - initially sold fewer than 10,000 copies in each of their first printings, Brown’s fourth novel, The Da Vinci Code, was an instant hit. In the beginning of his writing career, Brown was still teaching English to high school students so he had to wake up early every morning at 4am to squeeze in his daily word count target.


The simplicity of the prose and efficiency of the storyline was less cumbersome than the dense novels of my school days, and I began to suspect that maybe I could write a ‘thriller’ of this type one day.” “It held my attention, kept me turning pages, and reminded me how much fun it could be to read. “The Sheldon book was unlike anything I’d read as an adult,” he recalled in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. This experience served as inspiration for his future career as a best-selling mystery author. I took a year and educated myself, which was part of the fun.”ĭuring his career as an English teacher at Phillips Exeter, Brown and his wife were vacationing in Tahiti when he read a book called The Doomsday Conspiracy by Sidney Sheldon. “I wrote a book called Deception Point about glaciology and NASA,” he told The Guardian. Instead he encourages writers to write what they want to know. But Dan Brown doesn’t subscribe to that advice.

Subscribe to our newsletter so you don’t miss out!Īs the old adage goes: write what you know. “The Da Vinci Code” Trial: Dan Brown’s Witness Statement Is a Great Read | WSJĮach week, we publish a new daily writing routine from a famous author. Dan Brown is an American author best known for his best-selling thriller novels, featuring the Robert Langdon character Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code, The Lost Symbol, Inferno, and Origin.įor me, writing is a discipline, much like playing a musical instrument it requires constant practice and honing of skills.
