Has anyone read the new James Patterson memoir "Stories of My Life" ?

[anobserver2]

57. job offer

Here are two different ways Patterson publicly described his entry into advertising.
I believe: Only one of these ways is the truth. The other is a lie. Neither is in his memoir as I recall.

--------------------
In an October 2022 Investor's Business Daily article online, here is what he says: he obtained his first job thanks to a portfolio he wrote himself (without any help from a class or instructor):

https://www.investors.com/news/management/leaders-and-success/james-patterson-shares-path-from-hospital-to-selling-millions-books/

"But luck was with him. A friend heard the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency was hiring junior copywriters. It was seemingly a perfect start for a young man with two degrees in English. But the people doing the hiring wanted to see a portfolio. Patterson faced the dilemma: to get a job you need experience, but you can't get experience if no one will hire you.

Patterson solved that problem. "In 10 days I put together a portfolio, and they hired me," he said. "

------------------------
What is odd is that people do not put together a portfolio by themselves, and do not do so in "ten days." People take a college class to make a portfolio.

What is also odd about this article above is that Patterson told the NYT in a 2006 NYT article "Patterson Inc" that he left graduate school after only one year -- he did not cite nor claim any graduate degree. Now, above he claims he has "two degrees."

------------------
Prior to the "portfolio claim" above, Patterson was profiled in Feb 1985 in an Ad Age article titled "Patterson's Write-On Approach."

In that article it states at age 24 (in 1971), he took a "copy test" -- and that is how he got a job at the ad agency where he worked for 25 years.

I believe that 1985 Ad Age article is correct. That is how he entered advertising. The 2022 Investor's Daily article is wrong. He did not create a portfolio.

-------------

It is an important point: there are now two different stories in how he entered advertising, in terms of the larger story of his life.
(And, he omits both in his memoir, as I recall.)

It seems to me he has recently decided he does not want people to know he took a copy test. That may be because: a fake copy test ad in the NYT in 1984 is how he scammed thousands of consumers, by obtaining property from them under false pretenses, as people thought "Creative Directors" were reviewing their mailed in, written copy test submissions, as was promised by the ad.

In fact, Patterson was dumping these mailed submissions on his secretary's desk. She was the only one opening those mailed envelopes, reading the submissions with a rote read, as she had never even seen the ad, and then she would send out a required rejection letter. There was no Expert Opinion of Creative Directors reading these submissions -- even though that review was the benefit advertised in the ad.

Thousands of consumers were then misled to believe they did not have the talent to be a copywriter. In fact no one evaluated their work.

It was all a scam, just another of his scams. And it had to do with him fraudulently obtaining publicity for himself and media access, and other things, and of course money -- and corruption, in my opinion.. This scam went on for more than a decade, from 1984 to 1992 and beyond.

My belief is that his entire career as a best selling author began with scams. Had he not worked in advertising at that particular agency, and had he not been involved with these scams, I believe he might still find his books selling for $1 (one dollar) in the Dollar Bin at the Strand Bookshop in NYC -- which is where I found two of his books in March 1985.