RESULTS FOR 2009
Ranking: 101
Worth: £499m
Down: £61m, 11%
Source of wealth: Novels and films

France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, made JK Rowling a knight of the Legion of Honour in February, below — even though she’d given the bad guy in her Harry Potter books a French name, Voldemort. The star writer at Bloomsbury apologised, saying: “I can assure you that no anti-French feeling was at the origin of this choice.” Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth book in the boy wizard series, was the first novel written in English to top the French bestseller list but Rowling, 43, is a global success story. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final book of the series, took her worldwide sales to more than 400m in June last year. She is by far the richest author in the world, with royalties averaging about £1 a book. The five Harry Potter films released to date have made about £2.4 billion at the box office. There are three more films to come, as the final book is being split into two. Rowling enjoys a cut of the royalties and merchandising, so her income should take her to at least £600m before tax. Unlike many top authors, however, she has not fled from the Inland Revenue. Rowling lives in Scotland with her doctor husband and three children and prides herself on paying tax in full. She is also an enormous benefactor of charities, having given away perhaps £80m to date as well as a recent £1m donation to Labour.

RESULTS FOR 2008
Ranking: 144
Worth: £560m
Source of wealth: Novels and films