Well, the fact that she's filthy stinking rich is less about her writing and more about the fact that she was able to hold onto the ownership of her characters. If she hadn't done that, someone else would have been making a crapload of money on those movies. For instance, Tolkien got screwed out of the liscencing for his characters- he ran into tax troubles in the 70s, and a movie studio (lucky enough to be there at that time) offered to pay him enough to settle his problem.
I smell a shadowrun, but whatev.
I think that's the main reason that Christopher Tolkien refused to support the movies.
So controlling liscencing of your characters = filthy stinking rich (i.e. George Lucas).
-kv
