Author George R.R. Martin is best known for his novels A Song of Ice and Fire and has risen to fame because of HBO’s successful show Game of Thrones. How much money does Martin have as a result of his recent popularity and the success of HBO Shows? We will be looking at George R.R. Martin’s net worth and what makes up most of it.
George R.R. Martin’s Net Worth
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Martin’s net worth is approximately $120 million. How did the New Jersey native accumulate that much? To find that out, we have to look at Martin’s childhood.
Early Childhood
Born in New Jersey, Martin’s family was once rich but lost it all during the great depression. In his childhood, Martin was a big fan of comic books and credits comic book writer Stan Lee as one of his biggest influences. He was such a big fan that he bought a ticket to the very first Comic-Con in 1964.
He may be known as a fiction writer but Martin earned a degree in journalism and soon after got his M.S. in journalism. But his first love was writing fiction and he began writing short stories. He sold his first short story “The Hero” to Galaxy magazine. The story went on to be nominated for the Hugo Award, an award for short-sci-fi stories.
First Book and Game of Thrones
After that, Martin published his first novel Dying of the Light in 1976 and was published in 1977. Around that time, the first Star Wars movie was released and it made Martin dive into sci-fi related content.
His first Game of Thrones novel was inspired by The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien and was released in 1996. A Clash of Kings was released in 1998 and A Storm of Swords in 2000. In
2005, A Feast of Crows was released and went on to be Martin’s first New York Times #1 best seller.
HBO Buys Rights to A Song of Ice and Fire
HBO saw the success of the books and bought the rights for A Song of Ice and Fire. They changed the series name to Game of Thrones and Martin was the co-executive of the show. The first five seasons were based on the source material from the books while seasons 6-8 were mostly made up as Martin had not written the books yet.
How much did Martin make from the show? We know that Martin was paid about $25 million a year, $15 million of that being a paycheck per season of Game of Thrones. With 7 seasons under his belt, Martin made $150 million from HBO and that is not including the rights to the show.
HBO has released another tv show based on A Song of Ice and Fire titled House of the Dragon in 2022. If the payrate is the same, then Martin has made another $25 million this year. It is much harder to track how much Martin has made from his books. But it is likely a lot considering the tv show is free promotion for the books.
Conclusion
Georg Martin’s new worth is more likely around $200 million but we don’t know what he has spends his money on. Without exact numbers to track his book earnings and how much he has been taxed; we will never know. But either way, Martin’s family is once again rich, thanks to his love of writing and fiction.
Brilliant nothing will ever eclipse Game of Thrones