Novelist Paula Hawkins is living the dream of anyone who has ever aspired to be a writer.

The British author scored a massive word-of-mouth success last year with her debut novel, The Girl On The Train, a mystery-thriller about an alcoholic commuter who may or may not have witnessed a murder through the window of her train. You couldn't get on a bus or walk on a foreign beach last summer without seeing someone clutching a copy of the book, and sure enough, Girl went on to sell 2 million copies in the first three months of its release. [caption id="attachment_305772" align="aligncenter" width="2000"]

Paula Hawkins, pictured at the 2016 British Book Industry Awards in May (Ben A. Pruchnie/Getty Images)

[/caption] It continued to break sales records on both sides of the Atlantic, and has sold some 11 million copies worldwide since. As you'd expect from those staggering sales figures, Hawkins has earned a fair amount of money from her creation. Indeed, Forbes magazine has just listed Hawkins' earnings as $10 million (€9 million) for the last year. The best-seller has been made into a Hollywood movie starring Emily Blunt, due out later this year, which, it's believed, will significantly boost Hawkins' earnings further. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5_Iiu_uWI8 Hawkins was working as a financial journalist in London, commuting into work every morning, when the multi-million dollar idea struck for her novel. She signed a deal worth "in the high six figures" for The Girl On The Train. https://twitter.com/PaulaHWrites/status/759053624207028228 The other authors on the list include thriller writer James Patterson, who earned a whopping $95 million over the last 12 months, making him the highest-earning writer in the world by a comfortable stretch. In second place was Jeff Kinney, author of the Wimpy Kid children's books ($19.5 million), followed by JK Rowling with $19 million. Hawkins was in joint 9th place on the earnings list, with John Green (author of Paper Towns and The Fault In our Stars) and Veronica Roth (author of the Divergent series).