[Psylent]

There tends to be a very big division between what this board and others like it discuss and what gets read by the general public. I love Bakker but if I was going by internet discussion I would think he was one of the most popular writers in the genre and I would think that no one read Terry Brooks. I follow the bestseller lists because it gives me a perspective on what the average person is reading and gives me an idea about what is going on in the genre in terms of markets.

The numbers I’ve recorded are from the New York Times bestsellers list. Standard caveats about inaccuracy and lack of information apply.

Epic Fantasy
Butcher’s latest moved from 13th to 7th. Salvatore dropped from 3rd to 11th, his latest Corona book didn’t make it on the chart. Weis and Hickman’s latest Dragonlance made it on the chart, but their new original series did not. Everyone else stayed about the same.
Epic fantasy bestsellers were a bit sparse this year. L.E. Modesitt and Terry Brooks were both working on less popular series and Robin Hobb didn’t put out a book.

Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (The Gathering Storm, 1st)
Jim Butcher (First Lord’s Fury, 7th)
R.A. Salvatore (Ghost King, 11th)
Raymond Feist (Rides a Dread Legion, 16th)
Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (Dragons of the Hourglass Mage, 19th)
Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory (The Phoenix Transformed, 21st)
Brandon Sanderson (Warbreaker, 24th)
Jacqueline Carey (Naamah’s Kiss, 31st)

Young Adult
Anecdotally, my library has 39 copies of Catching Fire and its peak it had about 140 holds. It has 16 copies of the latest Jordan book and at its peak that book had about 50 holds. In other words, Suzanne Collins has gotten really popular, really quick.
We can see that kids love Urban Fantasy as much as adults—half of the YA bestsellers are urban fantasy.

Suzanne Collins (Catching Fire, 1st)
Kelley Armstrong (The Awakening, 1st)
Tamora Pierce (Beka Cooper: Bloodhound, 1st)
Kristin Cashore (Fire, 4th)
Scott Westerfeld (Leviathan, 5th)
Neil Gaiman (Odd and the Frost Giants, 5th)
Charlaine Harris (Once Dead, Twice Shy, 5th)
Michael Grant (Hunger: A Gone Novel, 9th)

Urban Fantasy: Hard Back
Lots of interesting things going on here. Charlaine Harris’s last Sookie Stackhouse book debuted at 6th last year. Thanks to True Blood her most recent book reached #1 and her short story collection reached #2. Also, every Sookie book has been hanging around the mid-teens and twenties on the paperback list. After Stephenie Meyers it looks like Harris is America’s most popular urban fantasy author.
Briggs’s last book, Iron Kissed, was #1 on the paperback list. Her fourth Mercy Thompson book makes the transition to hardback at a very respectable #5.
My man Jim Butcher hit #1 for the first time (Small Favor debuted at #2). Go, Jim!
As expected, Terry Goodkind’s new series is selling worse than Sword of Truth.

Sherrilyn Kenyon (Bad Moon Rising, 1st)
Laurell Hamilton (The Skin Trade, 1st)
Charlaine Harris (Dead and Gone, 1st)
Jim Butcher (Turn Coat, 1st)
Charlaine Harris (A Touch of Dead, 2nd)
Kim Harrison (White Witch, Black Curse, 3rd)
Karen Marie Moning (Dreamfever, 3rd)
Patricia Briggs (Bone Crossed, 5th)
Guillermo Del Toro/Chuck Hogan (The Strain, 9th)
Terry Goodkind (The Law of Nines, 10th)
Kelley Armstrong (Frostbitten, 12th)
MaryJanice Davidson (Undead and Unwelcome, 14th)
Kelley Armstrong (Men of the Otherworld, 19th)
Paul F. Wilson (Ground Zero, 28th)
Simon Green (Just Another Judgment Day, 31st)

Urban Fantasy: Paperback
For some reason Blood Promise debuted very strongly on the USA Today list but never showed up on the NYT lists. I’m not sure why that is, normally the lists are at least somewhat comparable, but considering its position on the list I thought I should include it.

Sherrilyn Kenyon (Dream Hunter, 1st)
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Born of Ice, 1st)
Patricia Briggs (Hunting Ground, 2nd)
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Born of Fire, 3rd)
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Born of Night, 6th)
Keri Arthur (Bound to Shadows, 6th)
Karen Chance (Curse the Dawn, 7th)
Carrie Vaughn (Kitty and the Dead Man’s Hand, 13th)
Ilona Andrews (Magic Strikes, 16th)
Yasmine Galenorn (Demon Mistress, 16th)
Lynn Viehl (Shadowlight, 17th)
Carrie Vaughn (Kitty Raises Hell, 18th)
Keri Arthur (Deadly Desire, 20th)
Marjorie Liu (The Fire King, 23rd)
Rob Thurman (Death Wish, 26th)
Richelle Mead (Blood Promise, 5th USAT)

Miscellaneous hardback
Stephen King (Under the Dome, 1st)
Dean Koontz (Relentless, 1st)
Thomas Pynchon (Inherent Vice, 5th)
Audrey Niffenegger (Her Fearful Symmetry, 6th)
Lev Grossman (The Magicians, 9th)
J.R.R. Tolkien (the Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun, 10th)
Anne Rice (Angel Time, 13th)
Terry Pratchett (Unseen Academicals, 13th)
Terry Brooks (A Princess of Landover, 15th)
Johnny Twelve Hawks (The Golden City, 16th)
Dan Simmons (Drood, 18th)
Anne Bishop (Shadow Queen, 20th)
Anne Rice (Angel Time, 22)
Dacra Stoker and Ian Holt (Dracula the Un-Dead, 23th)
Jonathan Lethem (Chronic City, 35th)

Science Fiction
I had a hard time deciding where to put a lot of these books. Some of them definitely have a strong fantasy flavor and if there were a few more alternative history books I’d probably give them their own category. Anyways, feel free to disagree with my decisions.
Oh, I didn’t include tie in books, but if I had there’d be some Star Wars books on here. It is definitely the most popular shared world setting.
I have to say I’m not at all pleased by what’s selling. I don't mind stuff from the shallower end of the pool selling but I'd like to see some stuff from the other end, aside from Atwood, selling.

Margaret Atwood (Year of the Flood, 8th)
David Weber (By Heresies Distressed, 11th)
David Weber (Storm from the Shadows, 12th)
S.M. Stirling (Sword of the Lady, 13th)
Kevin J. Anderson (The Winds of Dune, 15th)
Eoin Colfer (And Another Thing, 20th)
William Forstchen (One Second After, 21st)
Weber/Flint (Torch of Freedom, 28th)
John Ringo (Eye of the Storm, 32nd)
Harry Turtledove (Hitler’s War, 35th)

Miscellaneous paperback
Never underestimate the power of a gimmick.

Dean Koontz (Dead and Alive, 1st)
Grahame-Smith (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, 3rd ),
Jack Campbell (Lost Fleet: Relentless, 16th)
Winters (Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, 19th)

[Rob B]

Is the number next to the title the highest ranking it achieved on NYT? If so, it would also be interesting to see where in total sales for 2009 these books rank next to each other and other non-genre books for the year.

[AuntiePam]

Nothing from Stephenie Meyer on the lists? Seems like every time I went to Amazon, Twilight and/or New Moon were in the top ten.

I'd be interested in sales figures (numbers) too, but they're impossible to find.

[Dyloot]

I think it's safe to say that Meyer's Twilight series sold better than any book mentioned on this list, by far. I just wrote a county-wide story on the top selling books in my region and books 1, 2 and 3 were all in the top 5 and book 4 was no. 10 overall.

As for what's best, most fantasy readers I know have never even heard of authors like Bakker, Abercrombie and Lynch. Hell, I wouldn't know about these guys if I didn't come here. I'm a total novice in the realm of market penetration but it seems to me that readers in my demographic (late 20s/early 30s) are familiar with well-known authors from the 80s and 90s and far less so with recent writers.

[Psylent]

Is the number next to the title the highest ranking it achieved on NYT? If so, it would also be interesting to see where in total sales for 2009 these books rank next to each other and other non-genre books for the year.

Oops, should have mentioned that. The number is what it debuted at. Most books drop from that number so peak number and debut number tend to be the same thing. There are some excepts but not to many.

Nothing from Stephenie Meyer on the lists? Seems like every time I went to Amazon, Twilight and/or New Moon were in the top ten.

I'd be interested in sales figures (numbers) too, but they're impossible to find.

I was only listing debuts. IIRC, Time's by the numbers column mentioned that in the first quarter of 2009 1 out of every 6 books sold in America was a Stephenie Meyers's book. An easy to use list for finding information about how a book is doing is the USA Today list. It simply lists the top 150 books (no segregation by format) in the nation and information about when it debuted and how long its been on the list.

For approximate numbers you'd need access to Bookscan; Publishers Weekly occasionally lists numbers for major releases but that is rather rare.

[Psylent]

I think it's safe to say that Meyer's Twilight series sold better than any book mentioned on this list, by far. I just wrote a county-wide story on the top selling books in my region and books 1, 2 and 3 were all in the top 5 and book 4 was no. 10 overall.

As for what's best, most fantasy readers I know have never even heard of authors like Bakker, Abercrombie and Lynch. Hell, I wouldn't know about these guys if I didn't come here. I'm a total novice in the realm of market penetration but it seems to me that readers in my demographic (late 20s/early 30s) are familiar with well-known authors from the 80s and 90s and far less so with recent writers.

The lists seem to back you on this. It takes some time for an author to achieve market penetration. Martin didn't get to #1 until book 4 and Jordan wasn't until book 8. You can really see this pattern with urban fantasy authors; because they normally publish one book a year and in general it always moves up a few spots from the previous books.

[ChrisW]

Instead of #of books i'd go with time. Time to get to #1 writing the same series.

RJ - Nine years based on WH being the first one?
TG - Twelve years Based on Phantom being first?
GRRM - Eight Years on AFFC.
Butcher - Latest one was #1 wasn't it so about 10 years for the "Dresden" books?

Oh and PW has done a yearly sales figure for bestsellers in the past. Not sure if they still do it.

[Werthead]

RJ - Nine years based on WH being the first one?

Eight. PoD was the first to get to #1 I believe.

TG - Twelve years Based on Phantom being first?
Thirteen I think, from WFR in 1994 to Phantom hitting it in 2007.

GRRM - Eight Years on AFFC.

Nine from GoT (August 1996) to AFFC (November 2005)

Butcher - Latest one was #1 wasn't it so about 10 years for the "Dresden" books?

About nine, as Storm Front came out in April 2000.