You’re better off dead

Tom Clancy was an insurance agent when he started writing novels on the side. “The Hunt for Red October” was his first military thriller released in 1984 by a small military press.

It originally sold a few thousand copies until President Ronald Reagan praised it as the best thing since sliced communists and was picked up by Putnam and went on to become a national then international bestseller. And a blockbuster film with Sean Connery playing the soviet sub commander Captain Marko Ramius with a Scottish accent. And multiple hit video games on consoles everywhere. And a series of novels featuring the fictional hero Jack Ryan.

Tom quickly became the cornerstone of a publishing list by Putnam which emphasized authors who could produce a new book every year. He pumped out as many books as he could before his heart gave out in 2013 at the age of sixty-six.

Since his death, Tom’s Jack Ryan series has been continued by his family estate through a slew of ghostwriters.

Tom has now miraculously produced more books dead than alive.