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.