Daniel Brown was born on 22 June 1964, in Exeter, New Hampshire USA, to mother Constance, a music professor, and father Richard G. Brown, a mathematics teacher. He is a prolific author, but best known for his novel “The Da Vinci Code”.
So just how wealthy is Daniel Brown? Sources state that Brown has acquired a net worth of over $140 million, as of mid-2016. His fortune has been accumulated through sales of his books.
Dan Brown Net Worth $140 Million
Brown was raised an Episcopalian along with his two siblings. Both of his parents are singers and musicians, and church choir masters. He attended Philips Exeter Academy and then enrolled in Amherst College, Massachusetts, where he became a member of Psi Upsilon fraternity, a writing student of visiting novelist Alan Lelchuk, and sang at the Amherst Glee Club. In 1985 he went to Seville, Spain to attend an art history course at the University of Seville, returning the following year to complete his graduation.
After graduating, Brown launched his music career. He began creating effects with a synthesizer, and self-produced a children’s cassette called SynthAnimals, a collection of tracks such as ‘Happy Frogs’ and ‘Suzuki Elephants’, selling about a few hundred copies. This led him to form his own record company called Dalliance, and in 1990 he self-published a CD called “Perspective” which had similar success as SynthAnimals. In 1991 Brown moved to Hollywood in hopes of pursuing a career as a singer-songwriter and pianist; to improve his finances, he taught Spanish at Beverly Hills Preparatory School. He joined the National Academy of Songwriters, where he met Blythe Newlon, who would later become his wife, and who was the Director of Artist Development at the academy and through her position she helped Brown to promote his projects and introduced him to important people in the industry. In 1993 Brown moved back Exeter, where he taught English at Philips Exeter Academy and Spanish at Lincoln Akerman School in Hampton Falls. The following year he released a CD called “Angels & Demons”, including songs such as “Here in These Fields” and “All I Believe”. His net worth was moving upwards.
Being inspired by the novel “The Doomsday Conspiracy” by Sidney Sheldon, Brown started his own writing career, quitting teaching in 1996. Two years later, his first thriller novel “Digital Fortress” was released; the story is centered in Seville and focuses on clandestine organizations and code breaking, which would become the model for Brown’s later novels. Meanwhile, he co-wrote two humor books with his wife, “187 Men to Avoid: A Guide for the Romantically Frustrated Woman” and “The Bald Book”. In 2000 the author released a mystery-thriller novel called “Angels & Demons”, focusing on a Harvard professor of symbology Robert Langdon and his attempts to protect the Vatican from the Illuminati. The following year he released a techno-thriller novel called “Deception Point”, focusing on NASA’s finding of a meteorite proving extraterrestrial life and their attempts to hide it from public.
Brown’s three novels didn’t attain great success, selling less then 10,000 copies in each printing. However, his fourth novel “The Da Vinci Code” was a huge success; it was released in 2003 and went to the top position of the New York Times Bestseller list in its first week of release, and by 2009 it had sold an impressive 81 million copies worldwide. It also pushed the sales of Brown’s previous books, and in 2004 all four of his novels appeared on the New York Times list in the same week. Brown’s wealth was boosted with these sales of his novels, and his income from “The Da Vinci Code” sales was $250 million. He was listed among Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2005. The same year he was ranked 12th on Forbes’ “Celebrity 100” list with an estimated income for the year as high as $76.5 million.
In 2009 Brown released “The Lost Symbol” – the story is centered in Washington D.C. and takes Freemasonry as its main theme. It was the fastest selling adult novel in history, selling over one million on its first day, significantly adding to Brown’s wealth. In 2013 the author released “Inferno”, which became an instant bestseller, improving Brown’s net worth once again.
Brown’s novels have been inspired by the treasure hunt games he played as a child. The author often bases his characters on real-life people, for example the character of Langdon is based on John Langdon, an artist who created the ambigrams in the Angels & Demons CD and novel.
In his private life, Brown has been married to Blythe Brown since 1997. She has been a huge support and integral part of Brown’s success, as she assisted his projects serving as a research expert behind them.
Brown is involved in philanthropy, and along with his wife, he is an active supporter of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. In 2011 the couple created the Dan/86 and Blythe Brown Scholarship Fund to celebrate his 25th reunion with Amherst College, aimed at helping students at Amherst, preferably those with an interest in writing.
