New and improved for 2017, this list updates the previous iterations from 2008, 2013 and 2015.
These two authors have sold (very nearly) a billion books between them.
The usual rules apply: these figures come from publishers, websites and the authors themselves, they may be for all books in print rather than sold (although this will only cause a big difference for authors at the tail end of the list) and they are certainly not all right up to date. The first 10 authors are listed here, the rest after the jump.
Please note that the text of some entries remains unchanged since the previous list, as I wasn't going to rewrite every single one where no new information can be found.
As previously, I am indebted to the contributors to this thread on Westeros.org who kept the figures rolling in over the past eighteen months, and this thread where new information will be updated. Jussi of Risingshadow.net and forum users AncalagonTheBlack and TerokNor were invaluable in coallating this information (the latter for highlighting the biggest-selling German authors).
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1) J.K Rowling (c. 450 million)
J.K. Rowling may have completed Harry Potter, but the series is still selling phenomenally well. Coupled with the success of her two adult novels (The Casual Vacancy and The Cuckoo's Calling) and the Harry Potter stage play, her position at the top of the table is maintained.
2) Stephen King (c. 400 million)
As said in The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1996), King's worldwide sales are totally incalculable and the above figure remains fairly conservative. King's Dark Tower series has also sold more than 30 million copies by itself. Next year's film version will likely boost sales further.
3) JRR Tolkien (c. 350 million)
Tolkien's sales are likewise incalculable: 100,000 copies of a pirated version of The Lord of the Rings were sold in the United States alone in under a year, so the figures for unauthorised versions of the book in other countries are completely unguessable. What remains certain is that The Lord of the Rings is the biggest-selling single genre novel of all time, and possibly the best-selling single novel of all time. More than 50 million copies of the book have been sold since 2001 alone. The 100+ million sales of The Hobbit alone have also been bolstered significantly by the new Peter Jackson movies. If anything, the above figure may well be the most conservative on the list and Tolkien's sales may be vastly more than King's.
4) Stephanie Meyer (250 million)
The Twilight series has sold a quarter of a billion copiesin less than decade on sale. An impressive and startling achievement.
[Dean Koontz (c. 200 million)]
Dean Koontz's official website claims sales of 450 million, which seem hard to credit for an author with a big profile, but nowhere near that of King or Rowling. Other figures suggest 200 million, which seems much more credible. However, Koontz's eligibility for the list is questionable given that he has written numerous non-SFF novels (though many of them still within the horror or suspense thriller genres). Thus his placement on the list is for those who consider him to be a genre author.
[Michael Crichton (c. 200 million)]
Michael Crichton published 27 novels during his lifetime, selling more than 200 million copies. Only eight of those novels are SF, but these include most of his best-known novels (including Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Sphere, Congoand The Andromeda Strain). His placement here is for comparative purposes and for those who consider him to be a genre author.
5) Anne Rice (136 million)
Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles books were a huge phenomenon through the 1980s and 1990s, bolstered by the Tom Cruise/Brad Pitt movie.
6) CS Lewis (120 million+)
No change here, though Lewis's sales have likely increased somewhat due to the movies based on his Chronicles of Narnia novels.
7) Edgar Rice Burroughs (100 million+)
Edgar Rice Burroughs was a hugely prolific author. He has sold more than 100 million copies of his novels, including the SF Barsoom, Pellucidar, Venus, Caspak and Moon series and the non-SF Tarzan series.
8) Sir Arthur C. Clarke (100 million+)
Sir Arthur C. Clarke gains the distinction of being the only author on the list to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and have an orbit named after him. Clarke was already a well-known, big-selling SF author when the film 2001: A Space Odyssey and his television coverage of the first moon landing catapulted him into becoming a household name. A steady stream of best-selling, high-profile and critically-acclaimed SF novels continued into the 1980s, when his profile was again boosted by his TV series, Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World. As well as his SF novels he also published a large number of non-fiction books and volumes of criticism on matters of science.
9) Suzanne Collins (100 million+)
Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games hadn't even been published when I created the very first list. The trilogy has been published in full, sold over 100 million copies (over 65 million in the USA alone) and generated four hit movies since then. Very impressive.
10) Andre Norton (90 million+)
Andre Norton was one of science fiction and fantasy's most prolific authors, penning around 300 books (either novels or story collections) in a career stretching over decades.
READ MORE AFTER THE JUMP
[H. Rider Haggard (85 million+)]
H. Rider Haggard is an influential writer of the late 19th Century, most famous for King Solomon's Mines. His novel She: A Novel of Adventurefeatures significant supernatural influences (such as the main villain being immortal and killed by a supernatural force), but most of his work can be classified as adventure fiction rather than SFF.
11) Sir Terry Pratchett (85 million+)
The late, great Sir Terry Pratchett remains one of the biggest-selling SFF novelists in the world and, because his Discworld books are mostly stand-alone novels, he may actually have a lot more readers than several of the above.
12) Robert Jordan (80 million+)
On the very first list, Jordan had a lower position based on the frequently-given figure of 44 million. That has since been boosted by an additional 12 million sales of The Gathering Storm and Towers of Midnight (and possibly early sales of A Memory of Light). However, since then it has been revealed that this 56 million figure is for the United States and Canada alone. When a series has been sold in more than 20 languages (as this has), the rule of thumb is that half of the total sales figures come from outside the USA. The UK alone has added sales of 5 million to the figure. As a result, worldwide sales of at least 80 million for Wheel of Time are credible, and significantly more than that is likely. Since assembling the previous list the 80 million figure has been confirmed (as on the low side of things) by one of Jordan's international publishers. This figure may by now be closer to 90 million, and will likely explode upwards if the reported Wheel of Time television deal comes to pass.
13) George R.R. Martin (70 million+)
A Song of Ice and Fire's sales have exploded in the last six years. From circa 12 million books sold in 2011, the series sold more than 9 million copies in the remainder of that year alone. Though Martin's sales were starting to noticeably take off anyway in the mid-2000s, the main reason for the boost has been the remarkable success of the Game of Thrones TV series on HBO. He has also sold 1.2 million books in Spain alone.
[Star Wars (70 million)]
Del Rey and Bantam have sold over 70 million Star Wars novels, mostly from the "Expanded Universe", in the United States and Canada alone. This figure does not include those books published by Lucasfilm directly and Disney, including all of the "New Canon" novels.
[John Saul (60 million+)]
John Saul has sold over 60 million copies of his horror novels. Most of them fall into the psychological horror or thriller sub-categories, with only a few involving supernatural forces.
14) Rick Riordan (55 million+)
Rick Riordan is the author of the Percy Jackson series, which has so far spawned two successful movie adaptation and driven renewed sales of the books. He has sold over 55 million books worldwide.
15) James Herbert (54 million+)
The recently-deceased James Herbert has sold more than 54 million copies of his horror novels, most of which had an SF or supernatural twist.
16) Terry Brooks (50 million+)
Terry Brooks has sold over 30 million copies in the USA alone with his international sales boosting this massively. The Shannara Chronicles TV series has also likely helped push sales.
17) Richard Adams (50 million+)
Watership Down has sold more than 50 million copies by itself, though its fantasy status is debatable (you can argue about this in the comments!). I tend to count it as such, since aside from the talking rabbits there's also the fact that ghosts and spirit guides play a role. Adams has also sold not-inconsiderable numbers of his fantasy novels set in the Beklan Empire, Shardik and Maia, not to mention further works related to Watership Down.
[Dennis Wheatley (50 million)]
Dennis Wheatley was the biggest-selling British author of the 1960s and 1970s, routinely selling more than a million copies a year for over a decade. The majority of his books were crime, political or spy thrillers. However, he also published novels featuring supernatural elements, resulting from his own fascination with the occult. As a result, a small number of his books may be of genre interest.
18) Robert Heinlein (50 million)
One of the grand masters of old-school SF and one of the "Big Three" of late 20th Century SF alongside Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov, Heinlein had sold 11.5 million books by the early 1980s and about 50 million in total to date.
19) Arkady & Boris Strugatsky (50 million+)
Russian brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are among the most famous SF authors of all time, and certainly the most famous to emerge from the former Soviet Union. They wrote many novels, novellas and short stories of note, but their most famous work is the seminal and massively influential Roadside Picnic, which inspired the STALKER series of video games.
20) Cassandra Clare (50 million)
Cassandra Clare is the author of The Shadowhunter Chronicles, made up of the Mortal Instruments, Infernal Devices and the forthcoming Dark Artifices sub-series.
[Jean M. Auel (45 million+)]
Jean M. Auel has sold over 45 million copies of her Earth's Children sequence. Though written as speculative history, some have categorised the books as alternate history and thus borderline SF.
21) Wolfgang & Heike Hohlbein (43 million+)
Husband-and-wife team Wolfgang and Heike Hohlbein are the biggest-selling German authors of science fiction and fantasy, best known for their Magic Moon series.
[Morgan Llywelyn (40 million)]
Morgan Llywelyn is a best-selling Irish author whose work consists mostly of historical novels. However, some of them have a supernatural or occult twist, sometimes fairly minor and occasionally more notable.
22) Neil Gaiman (40 million+ )
Neil Gaiman has sold 30 million copies of the Sandman series of graphic novels alone and over 10 million novels. Coraline (arguably Gaiman's least-well-known novel) has sold 1 million copies by itself, as has The Graveyard Book.
23) Veronica Roth (40 million+)
What a difference two years make. Veronica Roth's sales have exploded from 22 million to 40 million since the previous list, no doubt due to the success of the movies based on her Divergent series of YA SF novels. The financial failure of the last Divergent movie does not seem to have impacted the impressive book sales.
24) Christopher Paolini (39 million)
Christopher Paolini's four-volume Inheritance Cycle has proven very popular, despite the relative failure of the Eragon movie.
25) Charlaine Harris (37 million)
Charlaine Harris has sold more than 30 million copies of her Southern Vampire Mysteries series, driven by the success of its TV adaptation, True Blood.
26) Michael Ende (36 million)
Michael Ende has sold more than 16 million copies of his novel, The Neverending Story, by itself and almost 20 million copies of his various other books. The success of the series as bolstered by several films based on his books.
27) Stanislaw Lem (30 million+)
The Polish author of Solaris and numerous other SFF novels has sold more than 30 million copies of his work worldwide.
28) R.A. Salvatore (30 million+)
Similarly to the Jordan situation, Salvatore's previously-reported sales figure of between 15 and 20 million was for the United States alone. Given his widespread global fame, a total worldwide figure of at least 30 million seems credible. Salvatore is the creator of Drizzt Do'Urden, by far the most popular individual Dungeons and Dragons character, and sales of his novels alone outstrip the estimated 20 million+ sales of the actual roleplaying game. Salvatore's series include the Icewind Dale and Dark Elf trilogies.
29) Sherrilyn Kenyon (30 million+)
Sherrilyn Kenyon is a prolific urban fantasy author who also publishes supernatural-tinged historical fantasy under the pen name Kinley MacGregor. She has over 30 million books in print in over 100 countries. Her best-known work is the Dark-Hunter series. She is so successful she even cowed even the famously litigious Games Workshop when they tried to publish a Warhammer 40K series with the same name.
30) Tad Williams (30 million)
Tad Williams had sold 30 million copies of his books, including the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy, the Otherland quartet, the Shadowmarch series, the Bobby Dollar books and several stand-alones, by 2011. Expect the new Memory, Sorrow and Thorn sequel series, The Last King of Osten Ard, to add a lot to that.
31) Mary Stewart (30 million+)
Mary Stewart wrote many adventure and historical novels, but by far her biggest-selling work was the five-volume historical fantasy Merlin Series, beginning with The Crystal Cave.
32) Kaoru Kurimoto (28 million)
Japanese author Kaoru Kurimoto published a startling 130 volumes of her Guin Saga series of fantasy adventure novels prior to her premature death in 2009.
33) Diana Gabaldon (27 million)
The author of the Outlander series, in which a 20th Century nurse time-travels back to Jacobite times and falls in love with a Highlander. The success of the TV series will likely boost sales further.
34) Terry Goodkind (26 million)
Terry Goodkind has sold 26 million copies of his Sword of Truth series and associated novels.
35) George Orwell (25 million+)
Orwell's prophetic SF allegory Nineteen Eighty-Four has sold more than 25 million copies by itself, with an unknown (but likely massive) number of copies of his allegorical animal work Animal Farmhave also been shifted over the years.
36) Marion Zimmer Bradley (25 million+)
Marion Zimmber Bradley sold more than 20 million copies of her feminist take on the Arthurian legend, The Mists of Avalon, by itself. Her Darkover series has sold an additional 5 million copies. Her many other books may take this total figure rather higher.
37) Darren Shan (25 million+)
Irish author Darren Shan has sold more than 25 million copies of his numerous YA and adult fantasy and horror novels.
38) Eoin Colfer (25 million)
The Artemis Fowl sequence remains one of the biggest YA series around.
39) Kevin J. Anderson (23 million)
Anderson has sold 23 million copies of his franchise tie-ins in the Dune, Star Wars, StarCraft and X-Filesworlds. However, he has also sold a reasonable amount of his original series as well.
40) Brandon Sanderson (22 million)
Brandon Sanderson only published his first novel in 2005, so to achieve 22 million sales in just eleven years is extraordinarily impressive, with 12 million sales from his three Wheel of Time novels and about 10 million of his solo books, including the Mistborn, Stormlight Archive, Alcatraz and Reckoners series.
41) Philip Pullman (22 million)
The lukewarm reception to The Golden Compass movie and the extremely long wait for The Book of Dust hasn't dented Pullman's book-selling power, with the His Dark Materials trilogy shifting 22 million copies worldwide.
42) Margaret Weis (c. 22 million)
Margaret Weis is best-known for her many collaborations with Tracy Hickman, most notably in the the Dragonlance fantasy world. She has also written several solo novels and in collaboration with other writers, and for many years ran her own RPG company.
43) Tracy Hickman (c. 22 million)
Tracy Hickman is best-known for his work on the Dragonlance series with Margaret Weis. He has also written solo novels and in collaboration with others, not to mention working on gaming materials.
44) Isaac Asimov (20 million+)
The seven volumes of the Foundation series alone have sold more than 20 million copies. When coupled with Asimov's other numerous books (he published more than 400 books in his lifetime), his total sales are likely a lot higher than this.
45) Brian Jacques (c. 20 million)
The late Brian Jacques has sold over 20 million copies of his Redwall series of animal-based epic fantasies.
46) Kazumasa Hirai (c. 20 million)
Kazumasa Hirai is the author of the Genma Taisen series of post-apocalyptic novels and graphic novels.
47) Raymond E. Feist (20 million)
Feist has sold more than 20 million copies of his Riftwar Cycle, which he recently concluded after thirty volumes. Some reports suggest that Magicianby itself (in both its one-volume and American two-volume formats) accounts for almost half those sales.
48) Michael Moorcock (20 million)
Moorcock has sold an impressive 20 million copies of his numerous books over the course of his lengthy career, most of them set in the Eternal Champion multiverse.
49) Mercedes Lackey (20 million)
The prolific Mercedes Lackey has sold more than 20 million copies of her fantasy novels, the best-known of which form the Valdemar series.
50) Frank Herbert (20 million)
Frank Herbert's Dune is the biggest-selling SF novel of all time, shifting 12 million copies by itself. I would hazard that most of the remaining 8 million copies are of the five other Dune novels as well.
51) Orson Scott Card (20 million+)
Orson Scott Card has sold over 20 million books, with over seven million copies of Ender's Game by itself in print.
52) Cornelia Funke (20 million+)
Author and illustrator Cornelia Funke was born in Germany but is now resident in California. She is best-known for her children's fantasies, including the popular Inkheart series.
53) P.C. Cast (20 million+)
PC Cast has written numerous supernatural and YA series, but her biggest success is The House of Night, co-authored with her daughter Kristin.
54) David & Leigh Eddings (18 million+)
The late Eddings couple had sold more than 7 million copies of the Belgariad and Malloreon series alone by 1995, with another 1.5 million copies sold of the combined Elenium and Tamuli trilogies. The total figure (incoporating almost twenty years of additional sales and his later Belgariad prequels and other books) has now passed 18 million.
55) Hideyuki Kikuchi (18 million)
Hideyuki Kikuchi has sold some 18 million copies of his Vampire Hunter D series, not including its mangaspin-offs.
56) Anne McCaffrey (18 million+)
Anne McCaffrey has sold 18 million copies of her Dragonriders of Pern series, with more than half a million copies sold of her collaborations with her son Todd alone.
57) Roger Zelazny (18 million+)
Roger Zelazny has sold more than 15 million copies of the Chronicles of Amber series alone and another 3 million for Lord of Light.
58) Larry Niven (17 million+)
Larry Niven has sold 10 million copies of his collaborations with Jerry Pournelle alone. His Ringworld books add a further 7 million sales on top of that.
59) Douglas Adams (16 million)
He may have published only a small number of novels (including the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy series) and suffered tremendously from writer's block, but Douglas Adams' sales remain impressive.
60) Yoshiki Tanaka (15 million)
Yoshiki Tanaka is the author of the ten-volume Legend of the Galactic Heroes SF novel series, which is hugely popular in Japan. It has spawned numerous adaptations and spin-offs in other media.
61) Timothy Zahn (15 million)
Timothy Zahn is the biggest-selling author of Star Wars novels, with the 15 million figure coming from his work in that setting alone (most notably the Thrawn novels). You can add hundreds of thousands more sales from his own novels on top of that.
62) J.R. Ward (15 million+)
J.R. Ward is the author of paranormal romances. She has sold over 2.6 million books in Germany alone and 15 million worldwide.
63) Madeline L'Engle (14 million+)
Madeline L'Engle's Time Quartet and its related spin-off books have been hugely successful, with the first novel in the series, A Wrinkle in Time, selling 10 million copies by itself. The sales of the rest of the series are unknown, so the total may be noticeably higher even than this figure. With a high-profile Wrinkle in Time movie due in 2018, her sales may rise even further.
64) James Dashner (14 million+)
More than 14 million copies of the Maze Runner series have been sold, bolstered by the recent feature film.
65) James Blish (12 million+)
James Blish, the SF author who coined the term "gas giant", wrote the enormously populist Cities in Flight series in the 1960s. However, his enormous sales and success came from writing more than a dozen Star Trek novels for Bantam in the 1960s and 1970s, comprising original material and adaptations of TV episodes.
66) Laurell K. Hamilton (12 million+)
Laurell K. Hamilton is the author of the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series.
67) Holly Black (12 million+)
Holly Black is the co-creator of The Spiderwick Chronicles and also a successful solo author, writing the Curse Workers series.
68) Tony DiTerlizzi (12 million+)
Tony DiTerlizzi is a writer and illustrator. He is the co-creator of The Spiderwick Chronicles.
69) John Norman (12 million+)
John Norman is the author of the Gor series which, improbably, is continuing today.
70) Diana Wynne Jones (10 million+)
The late Diana Wynne Jones sold more than 10 million copies of her books worldwide, a million of them in the UK alone. She is best-known for the Chrestomanci series.
71) Robert E. Howard (10 million+)
Robert E. Howard's hugely influential short stories, including the Conan the Barbarian and Kull the Conqueror series, have sold more than 10 million copies in book form alone. His total sales, including magazine sales driven by his stories, are likely incalculable.
72) Stephen Donaldson (10 million)
Stephen Donaldson's Lord Foul's Bane, published in 1977, kick-started the modern epic fantasy explosion alongside Brooks' Sword of Shannara. However, unlike Brooks who has continued to work in the Shannara universe ever since, Donaldson spent a whole two decades trying to stay away from his signature character with works such as Mordant's Need and the superlative Gap space opera series before returning to the series, and the bestseller lists, with The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Note that Lord Foul's Bane had sold 10 million copies by itself by 2004, so this figure will be considerably higher.
73) Alice Sebold (10 million+)
Alice Sebold's afterlife fantasy The Lovely Bones has sold 10 million copies since its publication in 2002, possibly helped by the Peter Jackson movie adaptation.
74) Jerry Pournelle (10 million+)
Jerry Pournelle has sold 10 million copies of his collaborations with Larry Niven.
75) Chris Bunch (10 million+)
Chris Bunch is the co-author (with Allan Cole) of the Sten SF series, as well as numerous solo works. He sold more than 10 million copies of the Sten series alone, driven the enormous popularity of the series in Russia. Sales of his solo work, such as the Seer King Trilogy (a fantasy take on the Napoleonic Wars), would likely push this figure higher.
76) Allan Cole (10 million+)
Chris Bunch's collaborator on the Sten series. Unlike Bunch, Cole has written only a few non-Sten books, so his total sales figures are likely closer to the 10 million figure.
77) Peter Straub (10 million+)
Peter Straub is a bestselling horror novelist, arguably best known for his novel Ghost Story and his collaboration with Stephen King, The Talisman.
78) Frederik Pohl (10 million+)
The late Frederik Pohl's total sales are almost certainly a lot higher, as he sold more than 10 million copies of The Space Merchants by itself.
79) Cyril M. Kornbluth (10 million+)
Cyril Kornbluth has sold more than 10 million copies of his novel The Space Merchants, written in collaboration with Frederik Pohl.
80) Gordon R. Dickson (10 million+)
Gordon R. Dickson has sold 10 million copies of his books, of which the best-known are the Childe Cycle (aka the Dorsai series).
81) Patrick Rothfuss (10 million+)
A mega-seller from the off, The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear (along with several novellas) have sold over 10 million copies with over 500,000 sales in the UK and 800,000 in Spain alone. The forthcoming concluding volume in the Kingkiller Chronicle trilogy, The Doors of Stone, will push that up, as will the movie adaptation from Lionsgate if it gets off the ground.
82) Gregory Maguire (10 million+)
Gregory Maguire is the author of the Wicked series of tie-ins with L. Frank Baum's Oz series, the first of which has been turned into a mega-selling musical.
83) Lauren Kate (10 million+)
A recent breakout success, Lauren Kate is the author of the bestselling YA paranormal series Fallen. The series has sold over 200,000 copies in Germany alone and 10 million worldwide.
84) Lois Lowry (10 million+)
Lois Lowry is the author of The Giver Quartet.
85) Richelle Mead (9 million+)
Richelle Mead is the author of the Vampire Academy YA series.
86) Ransom Riggs (9 million+)
Ransom Riggs has sold over nine million copies of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, bolstered by the recent film adaptation.
87) Ray Bradbury (8 million+)
Ray Bradbury has sold over 8 million copies of his books in 36 languages, the best-known of which remain The Martian Chronicles and Farenheit 451.
88) Christopher Golden (8 million+)
Christopher Golden is a highly prolific writer, penning dozens of novels and comic books, both with original material and media tie-ins for properties such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
89) F. Paul Wilson (8 million+)
F. Paul Wilson is the authr of numerous SF and supernatural-tinged thrillers, the best-known of which is the Repairman Jack series.
90) John Flanagan (8 million+)
John Flanagan has sold over 8 million copies of the Ranger's Apprentice and Brotherband series.
91) Alyson Noel (8 million+)
Alyson Noel is the author of The Immortals.
92) David Weber (8 million+)
The author of the Honor Harington space opera series and the Safehold series, amongst many other works, has become one of the dominant authors of military SF.
[Bernard Cornwell (7 million+)]
The overwhelming majority of Cornwell's books are historical adventure novels, such as the Sharpe series set during the Napoleonic Wars and his Saxon Saga (recently adapted for television as The Last Kingdom). However, some claim that his novels are alternate history and his Warlord Chronicles series is both highly speculative and features intimations of magic (through visions and prophecies), so he is included for comparative purposes. These are Cornwell's UK only sales from 2000-09, so his total sales will be notably higher.
93) Jonathan Stroud (7 million+)
The Bartimaeus Sequence has sold over 7 million copies to date.
94) Audrey Niffenegger (7 million+)
More than 5 million copies of The Time Traveller's Wife have been sold worldwide, half of that total in the USA and UK alone.
95) William Gibson (6.5 million+)
Cyberpunk pioneer William Gibson has sold more than 6.5 million copies of Neuromancerby itself. His total sales will be a lot more.
96) Peter S. Beagle (6 million+)
Peter S. Beagle has sold more than 6 million copies of The Last Unicornby itself.
97) Jim Butcher (6 million+)
Jim Butcher has sold more than 4.5 million books according to Nielsen Bookscan and some publicity materials from a few years back suggest 6 million. The true figure could be significantly higher than this. He is the author of The Dresden Files.
98) Barbara Hambly (6 million+)
Barbara Hambly has sold over 6 million copies of her books, which include original novels and Star Trek and Star Wars tie-ins.
99) Robert Harris (6 million+) (SF only)
Robert Harris has sold more than 6 million copies of his classic post-WWII alternate-history novel Fatherland by itself. Most of his other books are thrillers or Roman historical novels.
100) Bella Forrest (6 million+)
Bella Forrest is the author of the Shade of Vampireseries.
101) L. Frank Baum (5 million+)
This figure is very inaccurate; the Oz books by themselves had sold 5 million copies by 1956. In the fifty-seven years since, the series has likely multiplied that several times. However, the early books in the series are now out of copyright, which makes tracking sales figures almost impossible.
102) Daniel Keyes (5 million+)
Daniel Keyes had sold over 5 million copes of Flowers for Algernonby 2004.
103) Garth Nix (5 million)
Garth Nix has sold more than 5 million copies of his SF and fantasy works, including the Old Kingdom and Keys to the Kingdom series.
104) Robert R. McCammon (5 million)
A veteran of the early 1980s horror boom, Robert McCammon has sold 5 million copies of his horror and fantasy novels.
105) Vonda N. McIntyre (5 million)
Vonda McIntyre has sold more than 5 million copies of her novels, which consist of both original work and a number of Star Trek novels. In Star Trek circles she is famous for creating Mr. Sulu's first name for her books, which was later adopted by the films.
106) Sergei Lukyanenko (5 million+)
Sergei Lukyanenko has sold well over 2 million copies of his Night Watch books in Russia alone and 3 million outside it. His sales have been buoyed up by two movie adaptations of his work.
107) Michael Jan Friedman (5 million+)
Michael Jan Friedman is a top-selling tie-in author, noted for his Star Trek novels which were massive sellers back in the 1990s.
108) Kami Garcia (5 million+)
Garcia is the co-author of The Caster Chronicles.
109) Margaret Stohl (5 million+)
Stohl is the co-author of The Caster Chronicles.
110) Kiera Cass (5 million+)
Kiera Cass is the author of The Selection, a dystopian YA novel, and its forthcoming sequels.
111) Markus Heitz (4.6 million+)
Markus Heitz has sold more than a four million copies of his popular Dwarves series, which has been a bestseller in Germany and done well in English translation. A video game based in the series is in production.
112) Frank Schätzing (4.2 million+)
Frank Schätzing has sold 3.8 million copies of his 2004 SF novel The Swarm. A later SF novel, Limit, has sold almost half a million copies.
113) Fritz Leiber (4 million+)
Fritz Leiber, a pioneer of swords and sorcery, had sold almost 4 million copies of his Fafhrd and Gray Mouser novels and short stories by 1988 alone, and likely far more since then.
114) Lian Hearn (4 million)
Lian Hearn has sold more than 4 million copies of her Tales of the Otori sequence
115) David Drake (4 million)
David Drake has sold more than 4 million copies of his various SF and fantasy series.
116) Tamora Pierce (4 million+)
Tamora Pierce is the author of numerous YA fantasy novels, including the Song of the Lioness series and its numerous sequels.
117) Max Brooks (4 million+)
Following the success of the World War Z movie, Max Brooks has now sold over 4 million copies of that novel and its companion piece, The Zombie Survival Guide.
118) Scott Westerfield (4 million+)
Scott Westerfield has sold more than 3 million copies of his Uglies series alone.
119) David Mitchell (4 million+)
David Mitchell has sold over a million copies of his novel Cloud Atlas alone.
120) Mary Janice Davidson (4 million+)
Mary Janice Davidson is the author of the Undead series.
121) Janet Morris (4 million+)
Janet Morris is the author of The Silistra Quartet.
122) Ursula K. Le Guin (4 million+ )
More than three million copies alone of the Earthsea series have been sold and another million for The Left Hand of Darkness, with Le Guin's many other works likely adding a lot to that.
123) Deborah Harkness (3.5 million+)
Deborah Harkness has sold 3.5 million copies of A Discovery of Witchesand Shadow of Night combined in the US alone.
124) Jeanne DuPrau (3.5 million+)
Jeanne DuPrau is the author of the City of Ember novels.
125) John Ringo (3.3 million)
John Ringo is a successful author of American military SF.
126) Aaron Allston (3.3 million+)
The late Aaron Allston has sold more than 3.3 million copies of his Star Wars novels (including the popular X-Wing series).
127) Ally Condie (3.3. million+)
Ally Condie is the author of the Matched YA dystopia series.
128) Robin Hobb (3 million+)
Another outdated figure, based on her 2 million sales for Bantam and another million or so in the UK and Commonwealth territories. Counting the several novels published since and her successful work as Megan Lindholm, the true figure is likely to be much higher than this. Hobb is the author of the Realm of the Elderlings mega-sequence, which consists of the sub-series The Farseer Trilogy, The Liveship Traders, The Tawny Man, The Rain Wild Chronicles and Fitz and the Fool.
129) Peter F. Hamilton (3 million+)
The above figure is from 2004 plus the recent revelation he has sold over half a million copies of the seven-volume Commonwealth mega-series alone in the USA, so it's likely to be extremely inaccurate. Hamilton may have well sold several times this amount. Hamilton remains the UK's biggest-selling SF author, and his US profile has grown significantly in the last decade as well. As well as the Commonwealth universe, which spans the Commonwealth Saga, Void Trilogy and Chronicle of the Fallers duology, his other works include the Night's Dawn Trilogy and several related books.
130) Alan Dean Foster (3 million+)
Alan Dean Foster is both a prolific solo novelist (such as with the Spellsinger and Commonwealth series) and a writer of movie tie-ins (including the Star Wars and Aliens franchises). This 3 million figure is likely highly conservative, given his novelisation of the first Star Wars movie sold hundreds of thousands of copies even before the film even came out in 1977.
131) Guy Gavriel Kay (3 million)
Kay has sold more than 3 million copies of his dozen novels. Recent sales seem to be up, presumably driven by the popular success of Under Heaven, River of Stars and Children of Earth and Sky. He also assisted on the editing of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion.
132) Lloyd Alexander (3 million)
Alexander has sold more than 3 million copies of The Chronicles of Prydain by itself.
133) Dan Abnett (3 million+)
Dan Abnett is one of the most prolific and popular authors in the Warhammer 40,000 science fantasy universe, selling a million copies in that setting by himself as of a few years ago. Strong sales since then, particularly the rising popularity of the setting in the United States, has tripled that amount. He has also worked extensively in comics and recently published his first two original-setting novels.
134) Joe Abercrombie (3 million)
Joe Abercrombie has sold over 3 million copies of his books in ten years, which is very steady progress. His work includes the First Law Trilogy and several stand-alone sequels, and the recent YA (ish) Shattered Sea trilogy. He is now working on a new trilogy in the First Law world.
135) Margaret Atwood (3 million+) (SF only)
The Handmaid's Tale has sold 2 million copies and Oryx and Crakeand Year of the Flood combined another 1 million, putting Atwood's SF work at 3 million sales. Her total sales, including her non-SF, are likely considerably higher.
136) Robert Silverberg (3 million+)
Robert Silverberg is one of the grand masters of SF, with dozens of novels and collections published over a very lengthy career. Reported figures of 3 million seem rather low for an author of his popularity and longevity, and may be conservative. His best-known works are Dying Inside, Roma Eterna and The Majipoor Chronicles series.
137) Eric Flint (3 million)
Eric Flint is a writer and editor for Baen Books and is best-known for his 1632 series of alternate history novels.
138) Robert Asprin (3 million)
Robert Asprin has sold 3 million copies of his Myth series.
139) Rick Hautala (3 million)
The late Rick Hautala was a veteran of the early 1980s horror boom, selling more than a million copies of his third novel, Night Stone, by itself.
140) Brian Lumley (3 million+)
Brian Lumley's Necroscope has sold over 3 million copies by itself.
141) Neal Stephenson (3 million+)
Neal Stephenson has sold over 3 million copies of his novels, including Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, Anathem, Cryptonomicon, REAMde, Seveneves and The Baroque Trilogy.
142) Rachel Caine (3 million+)
Rachel Caine is the prolific author of the Weather Warden and Morganville Vampires series, among many others under multiple pseudonyms.
143) Bernhard Hennen (3 million+)
German fantasy author Bernhard Hennen has sold 3 million copies of his Elves series.
144) L.E. Modesitt, Jr. (3 million+)
L.E. Modesitt, Jr. has sold more than a million copies of his Recluce series in paperback alone. This does not include his numerous other books, or the hardcover sales of Recluce, which appear to add another million to the total.
145) Brent Weeks (3 million)
Relative newcomer Brent Weeks has sold more than 3 million copies of his debut Night Angel Trilogy and his current Lightbringer series.
146) Andy Weir (3 million+)
Andy Weir has sold more than three million copies of his novel The Martian, recently adapted as a very fine movie by Ridley Scott.
147) Joseph Delaney (3 million+)
Joseph Delaney is the author of the Spook's Stories series.
148) Melissa de la Cruz (3 million+)
Melissa de la Cruz is the author of the Blue Bloods series.
149) Ed Greenwood (3 million+)
Ed Greenwood is the creator of the Forgotten Realms fantasy world, the biggest-selling and most popular shared fantasy world ever created (R.A. Salvatore, Paul Kemp and several other massive-selling authors on this list also work in that milieu). He has sold 1 million copies of his debut novel, Spellfire, alone. Sales of his many later novels would amount to a great deal more than this.
150) Hugh Howey (3 million+)
Howey has sold more than two million copies of his Wool series of post-apocalyptic books.
151) Sarah J. Maas (3 million+)
Mass is of the author of the Throne of Glass series.
152) Simon R. Green (2.7 million)
Simon R. Green has sold over 2.7 million copies of his Nightside and Deathstalker series, amongst other works.
153) Kim Stanley Robinson (2.5 million+)
Kim Stanley Robinson has sold over 2.5 million copies of his Mars, Orange County and Science in the Capital series, alongside numerous stand-alone novels including 2312, Shaman, Aurora, The Years of Rice and Salt and Antarctica.
154) Harry Turtledove (2.5 million)
The prolific alternate-history author has written dozens of novels and sold more than 2.5 million copies. I have also not been able to find updated figures since 2008, so he's likely sold more than this by now.
155) S.M. Stirling (2.5 million)
S.M. Stirling has sold more than a two and a half million copies of his Emberverse novels, of which the most famous is Dies the Fire.
156) Michelle Paver (2.5 million+)
Michelle Paver has sold more than two and a half million copies of her Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series, which began with Wolf Brother.
157) Lois McMaster Bujold (2.5 million)
Lois McMaster Bujold has sold more than 2.5 million copies of her SF and fantasy novels, most notably the popular Vorkosigan Saga. This lowly figure for the most critically-feted living American SF author may be a result of a much lower profile internationally.
158) Kim Harrison (2.5 million+)
Kim Harrison has sold over 2.5 million copies of the Hollows series.
159) Andreas Eschbach (2.5 million+)
Andreas Eschbach is a German author of science fiction. He has sold over 2.5 million copies of his novel Jesus Video alone.
160) Susan Cooper (2 million+)
Susan Cooper has sold more than 2 million copies of her The Dark is Rising sequence.
161) Hans Domink (2 million+)
German SF pioneer Hans Dominik had more than 2 million books in print by 1944 alone, so again the true figure is likely higher.
162) Andrzej Sapkowski (2 million+)
Andrzej Sapkowski has sold more than two million copies of his books, dominated by sales of the fantasy Witcher series, in Poland alone. His worldwide sales are likely significantly higher, given the immense success of the three Witcher video games from CD Projekt Red (which have sold almost 20 million copies between them).
163) Katherine Kurtz (2 million)
Katherine Kurtz has sold more than 2 million copies of her pioneering Deryni saga.
164) Trudi Canavan (2 million+)
Trudi Canavan sold her one millionth book for Orbit in 2011 and has doubled those sales since then.
165) Stephen Lawhead (2 million+)
Stephen Lawheard is the author of both outright fantasy novels and Guy Gavriel Kay-style alternate/fantastical histories.
166) Robert Rankin (2 million+)
Robert Rankin has sold 'millions' of copies of his comic fantasy and SF novels.
167) Maggie Stiefvater (2 million+)
Maggie Stiefvater has sold more than 2 million copies of her urban fantasy novels, including the Books of Faerie and Shiver series.
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