SeanF Posted September 19, 2013 Share Posted September 19, 2013 I was interested in the link to the discussion about writers' incomes, upthread. It seems you can be both good, and fairly successful, yet make very little money out of writing. In UK terms, you would have to be very successful indeed to be making c.£30,000 a year from writing. That's enough to live on if you're single; not really if you're raising a family.One acquaintance of mine wrote a succession of literary novels that achieved considerable critical acclaim - and sold about half a dozen copies each. He wrote a series of thrillers under a pseudonym that bought him a flat in Primrose Hill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Free Northman Posted September 19, 2013 Share Posted September 19, 2013 I went with the 2 million figure for Piers Anthony. It seems a little low, but the BS he was speaking about Tolkien elsewhere in the interview (he had to pay someone to publish LotR? Er, no) doesn't fill me with confidence about his own claims. Anthony is also pretty much unknown outside the United States and he'd need a substantial international audience to hit tens of millions of sales like he claims.Gemmell's total sales appear to between 1 and 1.5 million. Gemmell never made enough from his books so he could stop writing, and lived from book to book. I think he had quite a nice house and lived quite well, but to support that he needed to keep writing. The main reason for his low sales is that he never cracked the USA and got a good US publisher behind him (same problem Banks has, or used to have before Orbit US took off, actually). If he had, his sales would easily by a lot higher.And yes, 50,000 copies per book is actually very good. Some authors stay in print selling only 10,000 copies or so per book.Amazing. I remember when I lived London. Every new Gemmell book was advertised all over the place. I really thought he did better than your description above.All I can say, in that case, is that US readers have been missing out on some really great novels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jussi Posted September 19, 2013 Share Posted September 19, 2013 Adam Roberts' The SodditI found higher numbers:Adam Roberts' THE SODDIT was a SUNDAY TIMES bestseller and sold 150,000 copies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jussi Posted September 19, 2013 Share Posted September 19, 2013 Aaron AllstonAaron Allston is a fan favorite, with 3.3 million Star Wars novels in print!Alan Dean FosterFoster is one of the stalwarts of the Del Rey list, with over 3 million books in print.The Wars of Light and Shadow by Janny WurtsOver half a million paperbacks of the series in print worldwide Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard Posted September 20, 2013 Share Posted September 20, 2013 Amazing. I remember when I lived London. Every new Gemmell book was advertised all over the place. I really thought he did better than your description above.All I can say, in that case, is that US readers have been missing out on some really great novels.Yes. Yes we have. :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jussi Posted September 21, 2013 Share Posted September 21, 2013 David Dalglish (author of Shadowdance series)David Dalglish generously share his updated sales number (175,000) with the Kindle Boards on of Feb 14, 2012.Jaye WellsShe has grossed over 200,000 copies for the Sabina Kane series.Darren ShanIn total, Shan’s books have sold over twenty-five million copies worldwide.Paolo Bacigalupi“The Windup Girl” sold 200,000 copiesJames LovegroveJames Lovegrove is returning to his New York Times bestselling Pantheon series – which has sold over 100,000 copies worldwide – where gods are made real and men have to contend with their rule.Stan NichollsMy Orcs: First Blood trilogy - Bodyguard of Lightning, Legion of Thunder and Warriors of the Tempest - published in the UK by Gollancz, is a worldwide bestseller, with one million, two hundred and fifty thousand copies sold as of 2010.Ben AaronovitchAaronovitch is one of Orion’s most successful authors, having sold over 300,000 copies of his Rivers of London seriesBrandon Sanderson15 million Brandon Sanderson books sold.Jacqueline CareyCarey was an established author, but the first Kushiel trilogy became a publishing phenomenon, selling millions of copies and winning her a devoted following.Anne RiceRice has sold 136 million copies of her 25 books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jussi Posted September 22, 2013 Share Posted September 22, 2013 Sharon Lee & Steve MillerThe new novel in the Liaden Universe® series. Over a quarter million copies sold in this series to-date! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard Posted September 22, 2013 Share Posted September 22, 2013 It pains me to say this, but didn't the first few Runelords books sell like hotcakes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sansa_Stark Posted September 22, 2013 Share Posted September 22, 2013 How much does Brandon owe his success to WOT? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jussi Posted September 22, 2013 Share Posted September 22, 2013 Elizabeth MoonOver 1,500,000 copies of Elizabeth Moon’s works sold in the US alone!!Alexey PehovThe Chronicles of Siala series is a huge bestseller in Pehov’s native Russia. Over a million copies have been soldBored of the Rings by Henry N. Beard & Douglas C. KenneyWritten by two Harvard Lampoon staffers in 1969 and published by Signet, the book, according to publicist Catherine Milne, is a very steady seller, with more than a million copies in print.Larry Niven (1997)the Ringworld trilogy has more than 7 million copies in print.Russell Kirkpatrick (2008)Orbit recently published Russell Kirkpatrick’s Fire of Heaven Trilogy: Across the Face of the World, In the Earth Abides the Flame, and The Right Hand of God. The saga has 70,000 copies in print combined. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sansa_Stark Posted September 22, 2013 Share Posted September 22, 2013 Like, does Gathering Storm, Towers of Midnight and AMOL count for Sanderson, Jordan, or both. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamjm Posted September 22, 2013 Share Posted September 22, 2013 Like, does Gathering Storm, Towers of Midnight and AMOL count for Sanderson, Jordan, or both.Both of their names are on the cover, so those books should count for both authors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jussi Posted September 22, 2013 Share Posted September 22, 2013 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel KeyesBy 2004, it had been translated into 27 languages, published in 30 countries and sold more than 5 million copies.Deborah HarknessNot only have nearly 1.5 million of these two books combined sold in the U.S., but a film is in development from Warner Bros. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted September 22, 2013 Author Share Posted September 22, 2013 The WoT books will be an appreciable fraction of Sanderson's sales, but probably not more than 50% at best. Sales of Sanderson's other books are very high according to Tor and booksellers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jussi Posted September 22, 2013 Share Posted September 22, 2013 Glen CookWith more than a million copies in print in a dozen and more languages, Glen is best known for his "Black Company" series.David Brinthe Uplift saga has more than one million copies in print.Dan SimmonsAlso:The Terror has sold a quarter-million copies to date. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jussi Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 Erin Morgenstern"The Night Circus" has more than 650,000 copies in print.More plausible figure for Dean Koontz:There are more than 200 million copies of Koontz's novels in printhttp://booksellers.p...ey-summer13.pdfEmberverse series by S.M. StirlingOVER 2.5 MILLION COPIES SOLD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jussi Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 Jasper FfordeThe New York Times–bestselling Thursday Next series has more than 1 million copies in printHugh CookHugh's epic 10-Volume saga The Chronicles of an Age of Darkness sold over 450,000 copies, including 160,000 copies of the first in the series, The Wizards and the Warriors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted September 24, 2013 Author Share Posted September 24, 2013 Looks like I was wrong about Sanderson. Of his 15 million sales, a surprisingly low 2.6 million* are for his solo work (1.5 million for the Mistborn trilogy as a whole) which means 12.5 million or thereabouts is for WoT. That also pushes WoT sales up to 56 million, most of them in the United States and Canada alone. Worldwide sales will be vastly higher still (5 million pre-Sanderson WoT books had been sold in Britain alone by 2009), maybe a lot higher even than my 80 million estimate.* Which is still obviously enormously impressive, just not as quite as massive as I was expecting due to Tor's positioning of him as one of their post-Jordan flagship authors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jussi Posted September 24, 2013 Share Posted September 24, 2013 John SaulToday he has over 60 million books in print.Gregory Maguire (2011)With more than six million copies of the first three volumes in print, books in The Wicked Series have also been published in twenty countriesWilliam KingHis English language novel sales for Black Library total over 750,000 copies and his books have been translated into 9 languages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jussi Posted September 24, 2013 Share Posted September 24, 2013 F. Paul WilsonOverall, my novels have been sold in 24 languages around the world. The total? Without fear of exaggeration, it’s more than 8 million copies.John Gregory BetancourtHe now has well over a million books in printUpdated figures:Gordon R. DicksonDickson's books sold more than 10 million copies and were translated into such languages as Portuguese and Bulgarian.L.E. Modesitt, Jr.Modesitt’s fantasy audience has been large for years, and there are now over two million copies of his books in print. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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