How much is George R. R. Martin Worth? George R. R. Martin Net Worth in 2025

George R. R. Martin Net Worth: How rich is George R. R. Martin? & How much money is George R. R. Martin worth? Time to find out!

George R. R. Martin is American novelist and short-story writer, screenwriter, and television producer and his current net worth is $70 million.

Born in Bayonne, New Jersey, as the son of Raymond Collins Martin, and his wife Margaret Brady Martin, he has two younger sisters.

He and his family first lived in a house on Broadway, with his great-grandmother. A while after, they moved to a federal housing project near the Bayonne docks.

Growing up in a small neighborhood, made him want to travel and experience other places, but he could only do that through his imagination, so he became a voracious reader.

How did George R. R. Martin start his career?

Then the young Martin started writing and selling monster stories for a few bucks to other children from different neighborhoods, dramatic readings included.

He would also write stories about a mythical kingdom populated by his pet turtles.

Martin went to Mary Jane Donohoe School, as well as at Marist High School. While in high school he became an avid comic book fan, growing a strong interest in the superheroes released by Marvel Comics.

After the letter he sent to the editor of Fantastic Four was published in the magazine, other fans replied to him. Later, he joined the fledgling comics’ fandom of the era where he used to write fiction for couple of fanzines. There, he became the first to register for an early comic book convention held in New York.

At 17 years old, he won comic fandom’s Alley Award for Best fan fiction for his prose superhero story “Powerman vs. The Blue Barrier”.

Five years later, he earned a BS in Journalism from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, from where he graduated summa cum laude. Then he went to complete his MS in Journalism, also from Northwestern.

After he managed to not get draft during the Vietnam War, he met English professor George Guthridge, at a science fiction convention in Milwaukee.

Martin insisted that Guthridge to try again speculative fiction, and to write in the filed himself. Since there, Guthridge became a finalist for the Hugo Award and twice for the Nebula Award.

In return Guthridge helped Martin to find a job at Clarke University because Martin didn’t make enough money from chess and writing to stay alive.

For two years, Martin served as an English and journalism instructor at Clarke. While there, he became Writer in Residence at the college.

After a close friend died, Martin reevaluated his life and decided to try to become a full-time writer.

Then he quit his job and moved to Santa Fe, where he started selling science fiction short stories.

How did George R. R. Martin get famous?

Upon relocating to Santa Fe, he started selling short stories professionally, and made his first sale The Hero, to Galaxy magazine, which they published in 1971.

Quickly after that, other sales followed. His first nominated story for the Hugo Award and Nebula Awards became “With Morning Comes Mistfall”, which he published in Analog magazine.

Then he published his first novel, Dying of the Light, in 1977.

Although he often writes fantasy or horror, a number of his earlier works are science fiction tales, which happen in a loosely defined future history, known as The Thousand Worlds or The Manrealm.

He has also written at least one piece of political-military fiction, as well as a vampire novel, which received critical acclaim.

Then he tried again, with another horror novel, The Armageddon Rag, which became a commercial failure. Thanks to the failure of his book, he sought a career in television. Soon after, he got a job first as a staff writer and then as an Executive Story Consultant, for the revival of the Twilight Zone.

CBS eventually cancelled the show, and he went over to the already-underway satirical science fiction series Max Headroom.

Then ABC cancelled its new show, for which Martin wrote on the scripts and created the show’s character.

Martin got a job as a writer-producer on the new dramatic fantasy series Beauty and the Beast, for which he wrote 14 of its episodes after becoming the show’s co-supervising producer.

In 1987, Martin published a collection of short horror stories in Portraits of His Children. During the same time, he continued to work in print media as a book-series editor.

After this period where he became addicted to Chaosium’s role-playing game Superworld, he stopped writing novels.

Meanwhile, as he overseen the development of the multi-author Wild Cards book series as well as having his own contributions to it. The volumes published since then.

After he returned to writing novels again, he grew frustrated that his TV pilots and screenplays were not getting made, he started writing books again.

How does George R. R. Martin make money?

Since he admired the works of J.R.R. Tolkien in his childhood, he wanted to write an epic fantasy, but didn’t have specific ideas.

Soon after, all those unspecific ideas turned into his epic fantasy series: A Song of Ice and Fire, inspired by the Wars of the Roses, The Accursed Kings and Ivanhoe.

Then in 1996 he published the first of the original three volumes, A Game of Thrones. Eventually turning the series into seven volumes, he published the fourth in 2005, A Feast for Crows, which became The New York Times No.1 Bestseller.

The fifth book, A Dance with Dragons, published in 2011, became an international bestseller. Martin’s entire series received praise from authors, readers and critics alike.

Two more volumes are in the works: The Winds of Winter and the final volume, A Dream of Spring.

In 2007 HBO Production bought the television right for the entire book series and started airing the fantasy series on their US premium cable channel in 2011.

Titled Game of Thrones, the show features famous actors such as Kit Harington, Emilia Clarke, Peter Dinklage, and Lena Headey.

Although busy completing A Dance With Dragons and other projects, George R. R. Martin became heavily involved in the production of the television series adaptation of his books.

Martin’s involvement included the selection of a production team and participation in scriptwriting; the opening credits list him as a co-executive producer of the series.

This wraps up our George R. R. Martin Net Worth profile!