Stephen King Net Worth

What is Stephen King's net worth?

Stephen King is a prolific American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, and fantasy novels who has a net worth of $500 million. To date, Stephen King's books have sold more than 350 million copies worldwide. As of this writing, Stephen King has published more than 65 novels (including seven under the pen name Richard Bachman), five non-fiction books, and roughly 200 short stories, of which most have been published in book collections. Many of them have been turned into popular films or mini-series, including "Carrie," "It," "Stand by Me," "The Shawshank Redemption," "The Stand," "Misery," and "The Shining." He is often called the King of Horror.

King has received numerous awards over his career, including the Bram Stoker Awards, World Fantasy Awards, and British Fantasy Society Awards. He was awarded the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters by the National Book Foundation in 2003. He was the recipient of the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2004 and the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 2007. In 2015, King was awarded a National Medal of Arms from the US National Endowment for the Arts for his contributions to literature.

Early Life

Stephen King was born in Portland, Maine, on September 21, 1947. His father left the family at a young age, and King's mother, Nellie Ruth, raised Stephen and his adopted brother David alone. The family moved to Wisconsin, Indiana, and Connecticut before finally settling down in Durham, Maine.

When King was a child, he was with a friend when he was hit and killed by a train.  His family told him that after leaving home to play with the boy, King returned, speechless and in shock. The family found out about the boy's death later that day. His mother took a job as a caregiver in a facility for the mentally ill when Stephen was eleven years old.

King was interested in horror from a young age. Growing up, he loved to read EC horror comics, which published "Tales from the Crypt." He started writing for fun as a kid. He sold his friends stories based on movies he had seen. The first story King had published was called "I Was a Teenage Grave Robber."

Stephen attended Durham Elementary and Lisbon Falls High in Lisbon Falls, Maine. King attended the University of Maine, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English. While in college, he wrote for the school newspaper.

Career

After graduating from college, King taught high school and sold short stories to men's magazines. In 1971, he was hired as a teacher at Hampden Academy in Maine. In 1973, King's novel "Carrie" was bought by Doubleday. This was the fourth novel King had written but the first to be published. When "Carrie" was published King received a $2,500 (equal to $14,525 today) advance for the book. The paperback rights to the book sold for $400,000, which is equal to $2.3 million today. "Carrie" set King's career in motion and became a significant novel in the horror genre. In 1976, it was made into a successful horror film starring Sissy Spacek.

During the rest of the 1970s, King wrote "Salem's Lot," "The Shining," and "The Stand." In the fall of 1977, King took a position teaching creative writing at the University of Maine. In 1982, he wrote "Different Seasons," a collection of four dramatic novellas. This book is significant because three of the four novellas were turned into films: "Stand by Me," "The Shawshank Redemption," and "Apt Pupil."

In 1977, King began accepting applications from aspiring directors to buy the film rights to his stories for $1.00. That's not a typo. His directors became known as King's "Dollar Babies." In 1979, a 20-year-old aspiring filmmaker named Frank Darabont was selected as a Dollar Baby to adapt King's short "The Woman in the Room." Frank's film version was a semi-finalist for Academy Award consideration in 1983.

A few years later, Frank paid Stephen $5,000 for the film rights to his novella, "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption." Frank wrote the screenplay and directed the film version, which was released in 1994 and is considered by many to be the best movie of all time. "The Shawshank Redemption" was not a huge success at first. It was considered a bomb after its initial release, earning just $16 million on a budget of $25 million.

After it received seven Oscar nominations (eventually losing all seven, mostly to "Forrest Gump), Shawshank's popularity began to pick up steam. A re-release quickly grossed another $10 million. To date, the film has grossed $80 million at the worldwide box office alone. More importantly, it has become one of the most popular films on cable, VHS, DVD, and streaming. Ted Turner's TNT acquired Castle Rock in 1993. In 1997, TNT acquired the cable-broadcast rights to the film, and soon after that, it was shown around the clock as the anchor of the network's "New Classics" film campaign. To date, Shawshank has grossed over $1 billion between rentals, VHS, DVD, cable-broadcast and streaming sales.

Stephen never actually cashed the $5,000 check Darabont paid him for Shawshank's film rights. Years after it became a huge success, King framed the check and sent it to Darabont as a gift with a note inscribed:

" In case you ever need bail money. Love Steve."

In 1986, King published "It," which was the best-selling hardcover novel of that year in the United States. King also wrote "Cujo," "Pet Sematary," "The Green Mile," and "The Dark Tower" series, to just name a few.

In 2009, King's novel, "Under the Dome," was published. A television series under the same name was later released in 2013 on CBS. His latest book, "Fairy Tale," arrived in 2022, and a novel about Holly Gibney titled "Holly" is set for release in September 2023.

King and his wife Tabitha own Zone Radio Corp, a radio station group consisting of WZON/620 AM, WKIT-FM/100.3 & WZLO/103.1.

Personal Life

King married Tabitha Spruce on January 2, 1971. They have three children. Their daughter Naomi and her wife, Rev. Dr. Thandeka, are both Unitarian Universalist Church ministers living in Plantation, Florida. Both of the Kings' sons are authors. Owen King published "We're All in This Together: A Novella and Stories" in 2005. Joseph King, who writes under the name Joe Holl, published a collection of short stories, "20th Century Ghosts," in 2005 and a novel, "Heart-Shaped Box," in 2007.

King and his wife are major philanthropists. He donates about $4 million each year to libraries, schools, organizations that fund the arts, and local fire departments that need updated lifesaving equipment, such as the Jaws of Life. King and his wife created The Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation, which ranks sixth among charities in Maine with annual giving of more than $2.8 million per year.  In November 2011, King's foundation donated $70,000 in matched funding to help pay the heating bills for families in need in Bangor, Maine. In February 2021, the foundation donated $6,500 to help students from Farwell Elementary School in Lewiston, Maine, publish two novels.

Real Estate

King and his wife own and divide their time between three homes. They have a Victorian home built in 1870 in Bangor, Maine, which was their main residence for years but is now set to become a museum and writer's retreat. They also own a summer home in the lake region of Lovell, Maine, near the border of New Hampshire. The couple also owns a waterfront mansion on the Gulf of Mexico in Sarasota, Florida.