(CNN/Mental Floss)

(Mental Floss) — How well do you know the authors of your favorite bestselling beach fare? We did some digging and came up with a few surprising facts on some of the literary world’s biggest cash cows.

3. Nora Roberts has been a staple on the New York Times Bestseller List for years, but it wasn’t easy for her to get her foot in the door. According to Roberts, who also publishes under the name J.D. Robb, when she was submitting her manuscripts to romance giant Harlequin, the publisher sent her a note rejecting her work because they “already had their American writer.”

5. Danielle Steel’s life sounds surprisingly like something from a Danielle Steel novel. The author has been married five times, and there have been some real winners in the bunch. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, husband number two was a bank robber who was convicted of raping a woman while he was married to Steel, and the third Mr. Steel was a heroin-addicted burglar.

6. The late Sidney Sheldon wrote a whole raft of bestsellers even though he didn’t start writing novels until after he turned 50. Sheldon kept himself pretty busy before his career took off, though, by creating TV hits like “The Patty Duke Show” and “I Dream of Jeannie.” Sheldon also won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for penning “The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer.”

(full list at link)

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