The Write Stuff - Dan Brown

"Writers don't need love - all they require is money," said playwright John Osbourne. But these authors seem to have plenty of both.

Dan Brown – £38 million

It shouldn't come as any surprise that Dan Brown was recently named one of the world's 100 most influential people by Time Magazine. His controversial book The Da Vinci Code is one of the best selling novels of all time (it sold 23 million copies in 2004).

Brown, who wrote his first novel, Digital Fortress, in the late 1990s, had five of the 15 best selling books in the United States in 2004, and his novels have been translated and published in more than 40 languages around the world.

A graduate of Amherst College and Phillips Exeter Academy, where he spent time as an English teacher before turning his efforts to writing full time, Brown's writing has been strongly influenced by his family – his father is a maths professor, his mother plays sacred music professionally; and his wife, Blythe is an art historian and painter.

Brown's other private inspiration is also cerebral, if more physically so – he favours hanging upside down while wearing gravity boots. "Hanging upside down seems to help me solve plot challenges by shifting my entire perspective," he says.

Don't knock it – Brown who came 12th on the 2005 Forbes rich list, is said to be worth almost £40 million. That's before the smash hit movie starring Tom Hanks was released this year starring Tom Hanks. Not a bad sum to rake in while 'hanging around'.