The SFF All-Time Sales List (revised)

It's that time of the decade again when we dust down the SFF All-Time Sales List, the probably-definitive and at-least-half-accurate guide to the sales figures of as many SF and Fantasy series I could find. We previously did this in 2008, 2013, 2015 and 2016, so welcome to the fifth outing for this list.

The usual caveats and rules: these figures came from a mixture of publishers, authors themselves, agents, Wikipedia articles and an awful lot of PR copy. In many cases they failed to distinguish between "in print" (including copies sitting on bookshelves or in a remaindered warehouse somewhere) and "actually sold", although as e-book sales take off this is becoming less of a problem. Some authors update their figures regularly and others do not, so some of these figures are cutting-edge and up to date, and others may be years out of date.

There are 368 authors on this list, 277 of whom have sold more than 1 million copies each. The lower reaches of the list is extremely incomplete (and for future lists I may drop authors under 1 million sales, as it's getting far too hard to cover them all).

This version of the list has benefited from studies of German sales via my colleagues at Westeros.org, as well as increased knowledge of sales in China.

1) J.K. Rowling (600 million)

J.K. Rowling may have completed Harry Potter, but the series is still selling phenomenally well. Coupled with the success of her adult novels and the Harry Potter stage play, her position at the top of the table is maintained and her lead increased.

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.

3) J.R.R. 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 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 (and possibly more than King's).

4) Stephenie Meyer (250 million)

The Twilight series has sold a quarter of a billion copies in a 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, Congo and 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 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 books.

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.

[Jin Yong (100 million+)]

The late Jin Yong has sold over 100 million copies of his wuxia novels in China, which cross the boundary between fantasy and historical fiction.

10) George R.R. Martin (91 million+)

A Song of Ice and Fire's sales have exploded in the last eight 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. Sales have now eclipsed 60 million in the United States alone and 90 million worldwide, and continuing to rise. He has also sold 1.2 million books in Spanish. He has also sold 1 million copies of The World of Ice and Fire.

READ MORE AFTER THE JUMP

11) 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.

12) Robert Jordan (90 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. Worldwide sales of the series have topped 90 million. Expect to see this figure explode when the Amazon TV series launches in 2020.

13) Rick Riordan (86 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.

[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 Adventure features 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.

14) Sir Terry Pratchett (85 million+)
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.

[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.

[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.

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 (51.7 million+)

Terry Brooks has sold over 30 million copies in the USA alone with his international sales boosting this massively. He has also sold some 1.7 million copies in German

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 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.

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.

22) Veronica Roth (42 million+)
What a difference four years make. Veronica Roth's sales have exploded from 22 million to 42 million since the 2014 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.

[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.

23) 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.

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) Margit Sandemo (39 million)

Norwegian-Swedish writer Margit Sandemo is the author of The Legend of the Ice People, a historical series with fantastical elements. Spanning 47 volumes published between 1982 and 1989, the series is one of the best-selling series of Scandinavian origin.

26) 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.

27) 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.

28) 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.

29) 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.

30) Sherrilyn Kenyon (30 million+)
Sherrilyn Kenyon is a prolific urban fantasy author who also publishers supernatural-tinged historical fantasy under the pen name Kinley MacGregor. She has over 30 million books in print in over 100 countries.

31) 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 and several stand-alones, by 2011. Expect the new Memory, Sorrow and Thorn sequel series to add a lot to that.

32) 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.

33) Diana Gabaldon (30 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) 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.

35) Terry Goodkind (26 million)
Terry Goodkind has sold 26 million copies of his Sword of Truth series and associated novels.

36) 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 Farm have also been shifted over the years.

37) 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. 

38) 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.  

39) Eoin Colfer (25 million)
The Artemis Fowl series remains one of the biggest YA series around.

40) Kevin J. Anderson (23 million)
Anderson has sold 20 million copies of his franchise tie-ins in the Dune, Star Wars, StarCraft and X-Files worlds. However, he has also sold a reasonable amount of his original series as well.

41) Brandon Sanderson (23 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 11 million of his solo books.

42) 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.

43) 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.

44) 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.

45) 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.

46) Brian Jacques (c. 20 million)

The late Brian Jacques has sold over 20 million copies of his Redwall series of animal-based epic fantasies.

47) Kazumasa Hirai (c. 20 million)

Kazumasa Hirai is the author of the Genma Taisen series of post-apocalyptic novels and graphic novels.

48) Raymond E. Feist (20.75 million)
Feist has sold more than 20 million copies of his Riftwar Cycle, which he recently concluded after thirty volumes. Recent reports suggest that Magician by itself (in both its one-volume and American two-volume formats) accounts for almost half those sales. His German sales have now topped 750,000.

49) Michael Moorcock (20 million)
Moorcock has sold an impressive 20 million copies of his numerous books over the course of his lengthy career.

50) 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. 

51) 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.

52) 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.

53) 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.

54) 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.

55) 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.

56) Hideyuki Kikuchi (18 million)

Hideyuki Kikuchi has sold some 18 million copies of his Vampire Hunter D series, not including its manga spin-offs.

57) 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.

58) 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.

59) 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.

60) 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.

61) Madeline L'Engle (16 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 16 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, especially given the recent movie version.

62) 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.

63) 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.

64) J.R. Ward (15 million+)

J.R. Ward is the author of paranormal romances. She has sold over 3 million books in Germany alone and 15 million worldwide.

65) James Dashner (14 million+)
More than 14 million copies of the Maze Runner series have been sold, bolstered by the recent feature film. 

66) 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.

67) Laurell K. Hamilton (12 million+)
Laurell K. Hamilton is the author of the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series.

68) 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.

69) Tony DiTerlizzi (12 million+)

Tony DiTerlizzi is a writer and illustrator. He is the co-creator of The Spiderwick Chronicles.

70) John Norman (12 million+)

John Norman is the author of the Gor series which, improbably, is continuing today.

71) 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.

72) 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.

73) 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 series before recently 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.

74) 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.

75) Jerry Pournelle (10 million+) 
Jerry Pournelle has sold 10 million copies of his collaborations with Larry Niven.

76) 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, of all places. Sales of his solo work, such as the Seer King Trilogy (a fantasy take on the Napoleonic Wars), would likely push this figure higher.

77) 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.

78) 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. 

79) 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.

80) 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.

81) 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).

82) 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. Patrick Rothfuss may be the fastest-selling epic fantasy author of the 21^st Century when single volumes are taken into account.

83) Gregory Maguire (10 million+)
Gregory Maguire is the author of the Wicked series of tie-ins with L. Frank Baum's Oz series.

84) 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.

85) Lois Lowry (10 million+)

Lois Lowry is the author of The Giver Quartet.

86) Margaret Atwood (9 million+) (SFF figures only)
The Handmaid's Tale has sold 8 million copies and Oryx and Crake and Year of the Flood combined another 1 million, putting Atwood's SF work at 9 million sales. Her total sales, including her non-SF, are likely considerably higher. The success of the Handmaid’s Tale TV series on Hulu and her recently-announced plans for a sequel novel will like drive her sales higher in the future.

87) Richelle Mead (9 million+)

Richelle Mead is the author of the Vampire Academy YA series.

88) 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.

89) David Weber (8.75 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. He has sold over 750,000 books in the German language market.

90) Ray Bradbury (8 million+)
Ray Bradbury has sold over 8 million copies of his books in 36 languages.

91) 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.

92) 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.

93) John Flanagan (8 million+)

John Flanagan has sold over 8 million copies of the Ranger's Apprentice and Brotherband series.

94) Alyson Noel (8 million+)

Alyson Noel is the author of The Immortals.

95) Liu Cixin (7.8 million+)

Liu Cixin's trilogy starting with The Three-Body Problem has sold over 7 million copies in China alone, which his English-language sales now exceeding 700,000. The series has also sold 100,000 copies in German.

96) Robin Hobb (7.5 million+)
Robin Hobb has sold over 3 million copies of her Realm of the Elderlings series in the United States and 2.5 million in the United Kingdom, with some 2 million copies elsewhere in the world. These figures are older, so are likely very out of date. Counting the several novels published since and her successful work as Megan Lindholm, the true figure is likely to be much higher than this.

[Bernard Cornwell (7 million+)]
The overwhelming majority of Cornwell's books are historical adventure novels. 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.

[Conn Iggulden (7 million+)]

Iggulden has sold over 7 million copies of his novels, including the Empire of Salt fantasy series. However, the bulk of his sales come from his historical books.

97) Jonathan Stroud (7 million+)
The Bartimaeus Sequence has sold over 7 million copies to date.

98) 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.

99) Sarah J. Maas (7 million+)

Mass is of the author of the Throne of Glass series.

100) William Gibson (6.5 million+)
Cyberpunk pioneer William Gibson has sold more than 6.5 million copies of Neuromancer by itself. His total sales will be a lot more.

101) Peter S. Beagle (6 million+)
Peter S. Beagle has sold more than 6 million copies of The Last Unicorn by itself.

102) 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.

103) 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.

104) 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.

105) Bella Forrest (6 million+)

Bella Forrest is the author of the A Shade of Vampire series.

106) Markus Heitz (5.1 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 on the series was released in 2017. He has also sold half a million copies of his other books.

107) Joe Abercrombie (5 million+)

Joe Abercrombie has sold over 5 million copies of his fantasy novels in twelve years, a remarkable achievement. Expect this to increase with the release of a new trilogy over the next three years and a rumoured TV adaptation of the books in the planning stages.

108) 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.

109) Daniel Keyes (5 million+)
Daniel Keyes had sold over 5 million copes of Flowers for Algernon by 2004.

110) Garth Nix (5 million)
Garth Nix has sold more than 5 million copies of his SF and fantasy works.

111) 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.

112) 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.

113) 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.

114) 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.

115) Kami Garcia (5 million+)

Garcia is the co-author of The Caster Chronicles.

116) Margaret Stohl (5 million+)

Stohl is the co-author of The Caster Chronicles.

117) Kiera Cass (5 million+)

Kiera Cass is the author of The Selection, a dystopian YA novel, and its forthcoming sequels.

118) Andy Weir (5 million+)

Andy Weir has sold more than five million copies of his novel The Martian, recently adapted as a very fine movie by Ridley Scott.

119) Trudi Canavan (4.6 million+)

Trudi Canavan sold her one millionth book for Orbit in 2011 and has doubled those sales in English since then. She has also sold 2.6 million copies in German (meaning her English language sales are likely a lot higher than this).

120) 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.

121) Fritz Leiber (4 million+)
Fritz Leiber had sold almost 4 million copies of his Fafhrd and Gray Mouser novels and short stories by 1988 alone, and likely more since then.

122) Lian Hearn (4 million)
Lian Hearn has sold more than 4 million copies of her Tales of the Otori sequence 

123) David Drake (4 million)
David Drake has sold more than 4 million copies of his various SF and fantasy series.

124) 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.

125) 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.

126) Scott Westerfield (4 million+)
Scott Westerfield has sold more than 3 million copies of his Uglies series alone.

127) David Mitchell (4 million+)
David Mitchell has sold over a million copies of his novel Cloud Atlas alone. 

128) Mary Janice Davidson (4 million+)

Mary Janice Davidson is the author of the Undead series.

129) Janet Morris (4 million+)

Janet Morris is the author of The Silistra Quartet.

130) 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. 

131) Rick Yancey (3.6 million)

Yancey is the author of YA alien invasion series The 5^th Wave.

132) Deborah Harkness (3.5 million+)
Deborah Harkness has sold 3.5 million copies of A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night combined in the US alone.

133) Jeanne DuPrau (3.5 million+)

Jeanne DuPrau is the author of the City of Ember novels.

134) Steven Erikson (3.5 million+)
Sales of Steven Erikson’s The Malazan Book of the Fallen series have passed 3.5 million.

135) John Ringo (3.3 million)
John Ringo is a successful author of American military SF.

136) 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).

137) Ally Condie (3.3. million+)

Ally Condie is the author of the Matched YA dystopia series.

138) 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 Commonwealth books alone in the USA, so it's likely to be extremely inaccurate. Hamilton may have well sold twice or more this amount. Hamilton remains the UK's biggest-selling SF author, and his US profile has grown significantly in the last decade as well.

139) 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.

140) 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.

141) Lloyd Alexander (3 million)
Alexander has sold more than 3 million copies of The Chronicles of Prydain by itself.

142) 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.

143) Robert Silverberg (3 million+)
Robert Silververg 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.

144) 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.

145) Robert Asprin (3 million)
Robert Asprin has sold 3 million copies of his Myth series.

146) 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.

147) Brian Lumley (3 million+)
Brian Lumley's Necroscope has sold over 3 million copies by itself.

148) Neal Stephenson (3 million+)
Neal Stephenson has sold over 3 million copies of his novels, including Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, Anathem, Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Trilogy.

149) Rachel Caine (3 million+)

Rachel Caine is the prolific author of the Weather Warden and Morganville Vampires series, among many others under multiple pseudonyms.

150) Bernhard Hennen (3 million+)

German fantasy author Bernhard Hennen has sold 3 million copies of his Elves series.

151) 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.

152) Brent Weeks (3 million)
Relative newcomer Brent Weeks has sold more than 3 million copies of his debut Night Angel Trilogy.

153) Joseph Delaney (3 million+)

Joseph Delaney is the author of the Spook's Stories series.

154) Melissa de la Cruz (3 million+)

Melissa de la Cruz is the author of the Blue Bloods series.

155) 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. 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.

156) Hugh Howey (3 million+)
Howey has sold more than two million copies of his Wool series of post-apocalyptic books.

157) Andrzej Sapkowski (3 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 sales in the United States have passed 1 million thanks to the success of the Witcher video game series. Expect this to grow markedly after the Netflix TV series based on the books airs in late 2019.

158) Licia Troisi (3 million+)

One of Italy’s biggest-selling genre authors, Licia Troisi has sold over 3 million copies of her books, particularly the Chronicles of the Emerged World series.

159) Andreas Eschbach (3 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) C.J. Cherryh (3 million+)

C.J. Cherryh is a prolific author of science fiction and fantasy, best-known for her Alliance-Union series (particularly Downbelow Station) and her Foreigner series.

161) Erin Morgenstern (3 million+)
Erin Morgenstern has sold over 3 million copies of her debut novel, The Night Circus. 

162) 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. 

163) Peter V. Brett (2.7 million+)
Peter Brett has sold over 2 million copies of his novels in English and over 700,000 in German.

164) 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, The Years of Rice and Salt and Antarctica. 

165) 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.

166) 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.

167) 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.

168) 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.

169) Kim Harrison (2.5 million+)

Kim Harrison has sold over 2.5 million copies of the Hollows series.

170) Michael A. Stackpole (2.3 million+)
Michael A. Stackpole is the author of numerous Star Wars novels and is one of the signature writers of the BattleTech franchise. His own novels include the DragonCrown War, Age of Discovery and Dark Conspiracy series. He has also written extensively for roleplaying games and video games.

171) Susan Cooper (2 million+)
Susan Cooper has sold more than 2 million copies of her The Dark is Rising sequence.

172) 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.

173) Katherine Kurtz (2 million)
Katherine Kurtz has sold more than 2 million copies of her Deryni saga. 

174) Stephen Lawhead (2 million+)
Stephen Lawheard is the author of both outright fantasy novels and Guy Gavriel Kay-style alternate/fantastical histories.

175) Robert Rankin (2 million+)
Robert Rankin has sold 'millions' of copies of his comic fantasy and SF novels.

176) 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.

177) Gregory Benford (2 million+)
Gegory Benford has sold 'millions' of copies of Timescape by itself. The rest of his work would extend this total considerably.

178) Greg Bear (2 million+)
Greg Bear has sold 'millions' of his novels, having both high-selling original SF work (such as the Thistledown or Eon trilogy, Blood Music and Moving Mars) and also writing Star Wars and Halo tie-in novels.

179) Jacqueline Carey (2 million+)
Jacequeline Carey has sold 'millions' of copies of her books, including the Kushiel series and the Sundering duology.

180) Piers Anthony (2 million+)
Piers Anthony has sold a million copies of the first Xanth novel by itself, so this total figure maybe a little low. However, 2009 PR info for the series did say it has sold just over 2 million copies by itself. Anthony has also written numerous other books and series, so his true sales are likely higher than this.

181) David Gemmell (2 million+)
David Gemmell has sold over 1 million copies of his books in the UK alone, with worldwide sales doubling that. Given his prolific career, the late David Gemmell's sales figures may appear to be disappointing. This may be down to Gemmell's lack of profile in the United States.

182) Justin Cronin (2 million+)
Justin Cronin has sold 'millions' of copies of his post-apocalyptic novels The Passage and The Twelve. 

183) Kevin Crossley-Holland (2 million+)
Kevin Crossley-Holland has sold over 2 million copies of his popular Arthur Trilogy for younger readers.

184) Becca Fitzpatrick (2 million+)

Becca Fitzpatrick has sold over 2 million copies of The Hush, Hush Saga (which appears to basically be "Twilight with fallen angels").

185) Kai Meyer (2 million+)

Kai Meyer is a German author of fantasy novels.

186) Marie Lu (2 million+)

Marie Lu has sold over 2 million copies of her Legends trilogy and Young Elites series.

187) Brian Daley (2 million+)

The late Brian Daley has sold over 2 million copies of his Star Wars novels revolving around Han Solo and Lando Calrissian, plus many more of his Robotech novels written with James Luceno under the pen name "Jack McKinney".

188) Jack Williamson (2 million+)

Jack Williamson (1908-2006) was one of the grand old figures of American SF, publishing regularly from the 1930s onwards, sometimes in collaboration with Frederik Pohl.

189) Jack Campbell (2 million+)
Jack Campbell has sold over 2 million copies of his Lost Fleet series of SF novels.

190) Cinda Williams Chima (2 million+)

Cinda Williams Chima has sold over 2 million copies of the Seven Realms and Shattered Realms series.

191) Dave Wolverton (2 million+)

Also known as David Farland, Wolverton has sold over 2 million copies of his Star Wars novels and his Runelords fantasy series, over 100,000 in the UK alone.

192) Laura Gallego Garcia (2 million+)

Laura Garcia has sold more than 2 million copies of her books in her native Spain alone.

193) Kerstin Gier (2 million+)

Kerstin Gier is a German writer of YA fantasy. Her best-known work is the Ruby Red series.

194) H.P. Lovecraft (2 million+)

H.P. Lovecraft is one of the most famous authors of supernatural horror of all time. His total sales are incalculable, but the only official figures put them in "millions". Expect the real figure to be vastly more than this.

195) Lev Grossman (2 million+)

Lev Grossman has sold over 2 million copies of his Magicians series, bolstered by the recent TV adaptation.

196) Kelley Armstrong (2 million+)
A prolific urban/dark fantasy author, Armstrong had sold more than 1 million copies of her books by 2011.

197) Dmitry Glukhovsky (2 million+)

Russian SF author Dmitry Gluhovsky is the author of the Metro series, starting with Metro 2033, which has also been adapted as a series of highly popular video games.

198) Sara Douglass (2 million+)

The late Australian fantasy author Sara Douglass was the author of the Axis and Wayfarer Redemption trilogies.

199) A.G. Riddle (2 million+)

A.G. Riddle is the author of The Origin Mystery series.

200) Blake Crouch (2 million+)

Black Crouch is the author of the Wayward Pines trilogy, recently bolstered by the TV series of the same name.

201) Daniel Abraham (2 million+)

As one half of the gestalt writing entity James S.A. Corey, Daniel Abraham has sold 2 million copies of space opera series The Expanse (now a major TV show!). Combined with sales of his solo fantasy work (the excellent Long Price Quartet and The Dagger and the Coin series), he must be a fair way above this.

202) Ty Franck (2 million+)

As the other half of two-headed writing entity James S.A. Corey, Ty Franck has also sold 2 million copies of The Expanse.

203) Leigh Bardguo (2 million+)

Leigh Bardguo is the author of the YA Shadow and Bone Trilogy and Six of Crows duology.

204) Victoria Aveyard (2 million+)

Victoria Aveyard is the author of the Red Queen series.

205) Christine Feehan (2 million+)

Christine Feehan is a hugely successful author of paranormal romances, particularly the Leopard series. She has sold over 1 million copies of her books in English and another 1 million in German.

206) Ernest Cline (2 million+)
Ernest Cline has sold over a million copies of his novel Ready Player One by itself. Armada will have added additional sales to that total. Expect sales to grow when the Steven Spielberg movie adaptation is released in 2018.

207) Melanie Rawn (1.8 million+)
Melanie Rawn had sold 1.8 million books by 1998 alone. Her later sales may be considerably higher, although her popularity and profile seem to have dimmed in recent years (her Spellbinder series was recently abandoned due to poor sales).

208) Jennifer Roberson (1.7 million)
Jennifer Roberson has sold 1.7 million copies of her books published by DAW.

209) Alexander Kroger (1.65 million+)

A German SFF author, frequently published under the pen-name Helmut Routschek, Alexander Kroger has sold over 1.65 million copies of his work.

210) Carlos Rasch (1.5 million+)

A well-known figure in his native east Germany, Carlos Rasch has sold over a million and a half copies of his SF novels.

211) Elizabeth Moon (1.5 million+)
Elizabeth Moon has sold 100,000 copies in the Baen Books omnibus version of the Deed of Paksenarrion trilogy alone. The Paksenarrion series as a whole has sold more than 1 million copies across all formats worldwide, and her total sales in the US alone are 1.5 million.

212) Susanna Clarke (1.5 million+)
Susanna Clarke sold more than a million copies of her novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell in its first year on sale alone, with an additional half million sales following in the UK alone. Total sales figures by now, almost a decade on, must be considerably higher.

213) Libba Bray (1.5 million+)
Libba Bray is the author of the YA Gemma Doyle trilogy.

214) Kevin Hearne (1.5 million+)
Hearne is the author of the Iron Druids Chronicles fantasy series. 

215) Heather Brewer (1.5 million+)

Heather Brewer is the author of The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod and its spin-off series, The Slayer Chronicles.

216) Amanda Hocking (1.5 million+)

Amanda Hocking is the author of the Trylle series.

217) Dan Simmons (1.5 million+)
Dan Simmons has sold more than a million copies of his novel Hyperion by itself. Combined with its three sequels and his many other bestselling novels, his total sales figures will likely be several times this amount. The Terror has also sold more than a quarter-million copies worldwide and this may rise after the recent, critically-acclaimed TV adaptation. Simmons’ German sales have exceeded 300,000.

218) Lara Adrian (1.5 million)

Lara Adrian is an author of paranormal romance novels.

219) Nalini Singh (1.5 million)

Nalini Singh is also an author of paranormal romance novels, bolstered by a strong explosion in sales in the field in both the United States and German language markets.

220) Mark Lawrence (1.5 million)
Mark Lawrence has been a big success story, shifting over a million copies of his Broken Empire, Red Queen's War and Book of the Ancestor trilogies in eight years.

221) Seth Grahame-Smith (1.4 million)
Seth Graheme-Smith has sold one and a half million copies of his horror novels with a tinge of comedy, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

222) Richard Schwartz (1.4 million+)

German author Richard Schwartz has sold over 1.4 million copies of several fantasy series.

223) Pierce Brown (1.3 million+)

Pierce Brown is the author of the Red Rising trilogy.

224) Stan Nicholls (1.25 million+)
Stan Nicholls had sold 1.25 million copies of his Orcs series worldwide by 2010.

225) Naomi Novik (1.2 million+)
Naomi Novik has sold 1 million paper copies of her Temeraire series and almost 200,000 ebooks.

226) Tanya Huff (1.2 million+)
Tanya Huff is the author of numerous novels, including the Blood Books series which the TV series Blood Ties was based on. 

227) David Mack (1.2 million+)

David Mack is a successful writer of Star Trek novels (along with episodes of DS9) and the author of the original Dark Arts series.

228) Iain M. Banks (1.1 million)+ (SF only)
The late Iain M. Banks sold 1.1 million copies of his science fiction work in the UK before his tragic passing. Banks's SF accounted only for a small fraction of his sales; when combined with his mainstream fiction and non-UK SF sales, he likely sold at least four or five times this amount. His controversial non-SF debut The Wasp Factory has sold over a million copies in the UK by itself, or almost as much as all his SF combined.

229) Jennifer Estep (1.1 million+)

Jennifer Estep is the author of the Mythos Academy series, which has sold over 160,000 copies in Germany alone and over 1 million copies in the United States.

230) Joe Hill (1 million+)

Joe Hill is the author of Locke and Key, NOS4A2, Heart-Shaped Box and Horns.

231) Samuel R. Delany (1 million+)
SF legend Samuel R. Delany has sold more than a million copies of Dhalgren by itself. His total sales will be notably higher than this.

232) William Goldman (1 million+)

William Goldman has sold well over 1 million copies of The Princess Bride by itself.

233) Paul S. Kemp (1 million+)
Paul Kemp has sold more than a million copies worldwide of his Forgotten Realms novels featuring Erevis Cale, servant of the god Mask, and also his own original fantasy series.

234) Connie Willis (1 million)
Best known for her time travel novels such as Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, Willis has sold just under 1 million copies of her books.

235) Alastair Reynolds (1 million+)
Alastair Reynolds has sold more than 1 million SF novels worldwide, hence his impressive £1 million, ten-book deal from a couple of years ago.

236) Jasper Fforde (1 million+)
Jasper Fforde is the author of the Thursday Next series. 

237) Ian Irvine (1 million+)
Ian Irvine has sold more than a million copies of his novels set on Santhenar. 

238) Richard A. Knaak (1 million+)
Richard A. Knaak is a noted tie-in author, writing books set in the Conan, WarCraft and Dragonlance universes.

239) Katherine Kerr (1 million+)
Katherine Kerr is the author of numerous SF and fantasy novels and is most famous for her Deverry series. 

240) Dave Duncan (1 million+)
Dave Duncan had sold a million books by 1999.

241) A.C. Crispin (1 million+)
The late A.C. Crispin was noted for her tie-in works. One of these, the novelisation of the 1984 mini-series V, has sold more than a million copies by itself. 

242) Joe Haldeman (1 million+)
Joe Haldeman has sold more than a million copies of The Forever War by itself.

243) Glen Cook (1 million+)
Glen Cook has sold more than a million copies of his novels, the best-known of which is the Black Company series.

244) David Brin (1 million+)
David Brin has sold more than a million copies of his Uplift Saga alone. With his many other bestsellers, his total figure will be much higher.

245) Henry N. Beard (1 million+)
Henry N. Beard's 1969 satirical novel, Bored of the Rings, written with Douglas C. Kenney, is itself a long-running, steady seller.

246) Douglas C. Kenney (1 million+)
Douglas C. Kenney is the co-author of Bored of the Rings with Henry N. Beard.

247) Alexey Pehov (1 million+)
Alexey Pehov has sold more than a million copies of his Chronicles of Siala (which starts with Shadow Prowler) series.

248) John Gregory Betancourt (1 million+)
John Gregory Betancourt has sold over a million books, including both his own works and Star Trek tie-ins.

249) Jo Clayton (1 million+)
Jo Clayton was the author of the Wild Magic and Drum series.

250) Christie Golden (1 million+)
Christie Golden has written her own novels, but is better-known as a prolific tie-in author. She has written novels in the Ravenloft, Star Trek, StarCraft and WarCraft settings, amongst others.

251) Dennis L. McKiernan (1 million+)

Dennis L. McKiernan has sold over one million copies of his Iron Tower series of fantasy novels.

252) Drew Karpyshyn (1 million+)
Drew Karpyshyn has sold more than a million copies of his novels, most of which are tie-ins with the Star Wars universe and other franchises. However, Karpyshyn is also a noteworthy writer of video games, contributing to the Baldur's Gate series, Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic and Jade Empire. His biggest claim to fame is being the co-creator of the Mass Effect fictional universe, penning several novels and comics set there and establishing the overall storyline for the three computer games. He worked heavily on the first two games in the series and then on the online roleplaying game Star Wars: The Old Republic (the work of the writers on Mass Effect 3, who deviated from the direction Karpyshyn had established from the series, has been criticised). More than 10 million copies of video games that Karpyshyn has worked on have been sold.

253) Karen Miller (1 million+)
Karen Miller (also writing as K.E. Miller) is the author of the Kingmaker, Kingbreaker series of fantasy novels.

254) Elizabeth Haydon (1 million+)
Elizabeth Haydon has sold over a million copies of her Symphony of the Ages series.

255) Tim Powers (1 million+)

Tim Powers is a critically-acclaimed author of SF and historical fantasy. His best-known book remains On Stranger Tides.

256) Walter Moers (1 million+)

German fantasy author Walter Moers is the author of the Zamonia sequence.

257) Dacre Stoker (1 million+)

The great grand-nephew of Bram Stoker, Dacre Stoker is the author of Dracula: The Un-Dead, which has sold over a million copies worldwide.

258) Laini Taylor (1 million+)

Taylor is the author of the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy.

259) Kazuo Ishiguro (1 million+) (SF only)

British literary figure Kazuo Ishiguro has sold over 1 million copies of his most over SF novel, Never Let Me Go. Sales figures for his first fantasy novel, The Buried Giant, are not yet available.

260) Julie Kagawa (1 million+)

Julie Kagawa has sold over 200,000 copies of her Iron Fey series.

261) Ben Aaronovitch (1 million+)
Ben Aaronovitch has sold over a million copies of his Rivers of London series.

262) Melissa Marr (1 million+)

Melissa Marr is the author of the Wicked Lovely series.

263) Kenneth Oppel (1 million+)

Kenneth Oppel is the author of the Silverwing trilogy.

264) Richard Matheson (1 million+)

Richard Matheson sold over 1 million copies of his famous novel I Am Legend by itself.

265) Guillermo Del Toro & Chuck Hogan (1 million+)

Del Toro and Chuck Hogan's Strain Trilogy, recently adapted to television, has sold over a million copies.

266) Anne Bishop (1 million+)

Anne Bishop is the author of the Black Trilogy.

267) William F. Nolan (1 million+)

William Nolan is best-known for his classic SF novel Logan's Run.

268) C.C. Hunter (1 million+)

C.C. Hunter is the author of the Shadow Falls paranormal series.

269) Kristin Cashore (1 million+)

Kristin Cashore has sold over 350,000 copies of her Graceling series in the UK alone and a million worldwide.

270) Octavia Butler (1 million+)

One of the most famous SFF authors of all time, Octavia Butler has sold half a million copies of her novel Kindred by itself and more than a million of all her works.

271) Tahereh Mafi (1 million+)

Mafi is the author of the Shatter Me trilogy.

272) Michael J. Sullivan (1 million+)
Michael J. Sullivan took the step of self-publishing his Riyria Revelations fantasy series before it was snapped up by a traditional publisher. This fanbase has propelled him to healthy sales.

273) Greg Keyes (1 million+)

Greg Keyes is the author of the Age of Unreason series and The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone, among many other books, as well as tie-in novels in Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls setting.

274) Hao Jingfang (1 million+)

2016 Hugo Award winner Hao Jingfang has sold over 1 million books in her native China.

275) Lynsay Sands (1 million+)

Lynsay Sands is a paranormal romance author.

276) Emily R. King (1 million+)

Emily King is also a paranormal romance author.

277) Anthony Ryan (1 million+)

Anthony Ryan has sold over 200,000 copies of his debut novel, Blood Song, in its mass-market edition alone. With three more books published since then, his total figures have passed 1 million. Ryan sold 40,000 self-published ebook copies of Blood Song before it was picked up by a professional publisher.

278) N.K. Jemisin (1 million+)

Nora Jemisin’s three series (Inheritance, Dreamblood and The Broken Earth) have taken her past 1 million sales, with her profile and sales increasing noticeably after she won her third successive Hugo Award for Best Novel.

279) Chris Wooding (1 million+)Chris Wooding has been making a name for himself as an adult fantasy author with his Braided Path and Tales of the Ketty Jay series, but his initial success has come from his highly popular YA books, which have sold very well in the United States. Wooding has a new ongoing fantasy series, The Darkwater Legacy, which will no doubt bring many new fans to the table.

280) Pierre Bordage (900,000+)

French author Pierre Bordage has sold over 900,000 copies of his science fiction novels in France, Russia, Italy and Spain, but has so far not been published in English.

281) Jay Allan (800,000+)

Jay Allan is the author of the Crimson Worlds series.

282) William King (750,000+)
William King has sold three-quarters of a million novels for the Black Library.

283) William Forstchen (750,000+)

William Forstchen is an author of alternative history, military fantasy and science fiction.

284) Alison Croggon (750,000+)
Alison Croggon has sold more than 750,000 copies of her Books of Pellinor fantasy series.

285) Craig Shaw Gardner (750,000+)
Craig Shaw Gardner is the author of numerous series including the Dragon Circle and Wuntvor series. He has also written tie-in work, including the official novelisation of the 1989 Tim Burton Batman movie, which as sold over 750,000 copies by itself. His total sales will be much higher than this.

286) Lilith Saintcrown (675,000+)

Lilith Saintcrow is the author of numerous urban fantasy, historical fantasy and steampunk novels. She is best known for the Watcher, Society, Dante Valentine and Bannon and Clare series.

287) Rachel Ward (650,000+)

Rachel Ward is the author of the Numbers SF series.

288) Michael Peinkofer (600,000+)

German author Michael Peinkofer has sold over 600,000 copies of his Orcs series.

289) Gail Z. Martin (600,000+)
Gail Z. Martin is the author of the Chronicles of the Necromancer and Fallen Kings series.

290) Charlie Higson (600,000+)

Charlie Higson is a British comedian, actor and TV personality, best-known for his work on The Fast Show. He is also a successful YA SF author, having recently completed the seven-volume, post-apocalyptic Enemy series.

291) M.R. Carey (600,000+)

M.R. Carey has sold over 200,000 copies of his novel The Girl With All the Gifts by itself (which was recently made into a movie), with more sales coming from his Felix Castor series.

292) Jeaniene Frost (600,000+)

Jeaniene Frost is a highly successful paranormal romance writer, best-known for her Night Huntress series, which has sold 500,000 copies in Germany alone.

293) Kate Elliott (500,000+)
An old and certainly incorrect figure, Kate Elliott is listed as having sold half a million copies of her Crown of Stars series. With her many other series, she has certainly sold far more than this.

294) Scott Lynch (500,000+) 

Scott Lynch has sold half a million copies of The Lies of Locke Lamora alone, over 300,000 copies of which were in the UK.

295) Janny Wurts (500,000+)
Janny Wurts has sold more than half a million copies of her Wars of Light and Shadow series worldwide. Her other solo novels and in particular her popular collaborations with Raymond E. Feist have likely raised the total figure to a considerably higher level.

296) Michael Gerber (500,000+)
Michael Gerber has sold half a million copies of his Barry Trotter parody novels.

297) David Dalglish (500,000+)
The Shadowdance series has sold 500,000 copies to date.

298) Patricia Briggs (500,000+)

Patricia Briggs is the bestselling author of the Mercy Thompson series. Given its international bestselling status since 1993, it has likely sold several million copies. However, the only figures I can find are 500,000 in Germany alone. The total figure will be considerably higher.

299) Gail Carriger (500,000)
Carriger is the author of The Parasol Protectorate series.

300) Sharon Lee (500,000+)
Sharon Lee is the co-author of the Liaden Universe series.

301) Steve Miller (500,000+)
Steve Miller is the co-author of the Liaden Universe series.

302) Daniel Arenson (500,000+)

Daniel Arenson is the author of the Earthrise, Requiem, Moth, Alien Hunters and Kingdoms of Sand series.

303) James Lowder (500,000+)

James Lowder was a writer and editor at TSR, Inc., working on Dungeons and Dragons-related materials. His biggest sellers are the Dragonlance novel Knight of the Black Rose and the Forgotten Realms novel Prince of Lies, which have sold close to 300,000 copies between them in the English language alone. His total sales were 500,000 in English by 2005, not counting translations or the numerous anthologies he has edited.

304) Alexandra Ivy (500,000+)

Alexandry Ivy is the author of the Guardians of Eternity paranormal series and other works in the fantasy and paranormal romance genre.

305) Tom Holt (450,000+)

Tom Holt is a British comic SF and fantasy author. He has sold over 450,000 books. This does not include the books sold under his pen-name K.J. Parker, by which he is better known in the US.

306) Hugh Cook (450,000+)
Hugh Cook has sold over 450,000 copies of his offbeat ten-volume Chronicles of an Age of Darkness series. 

307) Lawrence Watt-Evans (400,000+)
Lawrence Watt-Evans (who also writes as Nathan Archer) has sold over 400,000 copies of his Ethshar SF series.

308) Michael G. Manning (400,000)

Michael G. Manning is the author of the Mageborn series.

309) Henri Lœvenbruck (400,000+)

Henri Lœvenbruck is a French fantasy author.

310) John Scalzi (370,000+)

Popular SF author John Scalzi has sold "hundreds of thousands of copies" of Old Man's War by itself, over 88,000 copies of Lock In in its first year and 80,000 copies of Redshirts in its first year. That's three out of over a dozen novels, with Tor reporting that Scalzi sells "five figures a month" in backlist, so his total figure will likely be several times this figure.

311) Lynn Flewelling (350,000)
Lynn Flewelling has sold 350,000 copies of her six-volume Nightrunner series.

312) Christoph Hardebusch (350,000+)

German author Christoph Hardebusch has sold over 350,000 copies of his Trolls series.

313) G.A. Aiken (350,000+)

G.A. Aiken, who also writes as Shelly Laurentson, is a leading writer in the fantasy romance genre, particularly about shape-changing animals and dragons. She has sold over 350,000 copies in Germany and considerably more worldwide.

314) Mark Smith (300,000+)
Mark Smith (not the lead singer of The Fall) is part of a husband-and-wife writing team, better known for publishing under the pseudoynms Jonathan Wylie (the Ice Mage books) and Julia Gray (the Guardian Cycle).

315) Julia Smith (300,000+) 
Julia Smith is part of a husband-and-wife writing team, better known for publishing under the pseudoynms Jonathan Wylie (the Ice Mage books) and Julia Gray (the Guardian Cycle).

316) George Saunders (300,000+)

George Saunders has sold almost a third of a million copies of his novel, Tenth of December, by itself.

317) Sara Prineas (300,000+)

Sarah Prineas has sold over 300,000 copies of The Magic Thief in the United Stats alone
.

318) Seanan McGuire (300,000+)

Seanan McGuire has sold over 300,000 novels published under her name and the pseudonym Mira Grant, most notably the Newsflesh series.

319) Anne Leckie (300,000+)

Anne Leckie has sold over 300,000 copies of her Ancillary Justice trilogy.

320) Catherine Webb (300,000+)

Catherine Webb writes multiple series under different pseudonyms, including Kate Griffin (for urban fantasy) and Claire North (for science fiction).

321) Royce Buckingham (290,000+)

Royce Buckingham is an Amerian fantasy author, best-known for his Demonkeeper and Mapper series. A minor figure in the USA, most of his success has come from his German sales.

322) Pierre Grimbert (260,000+)

French fantasy author Pierre Grimbert has sold over 260,000 copies of his fantasy works in Germany by itself.

323) J.V. Jones (250,000+)
One of the oldest figures on the list, Jones had sold 250,000 copies of The Book of Words trilogy and The Barbed Coil by 1999. Her sales since then must have pushed this total considerably higher.

324) Maggie Furey (250,000+)

Maggie Furey is the author of The Artefacts of Power and Xandim series.

325) Samantha Shannon (250,000+)

Samantha Shannon is the author of The Bone Season.

326) Lauren DeStefano (250,000+)

Lauren DeStefano is the author of the Chemical Garden series and Internment Chronicles.

327) Nicholas Sansbury Smith (250,000)

Nicholas Sansbury Smith is a self-published success story, releasing six volumes so far in the Extinction Cycle. The series is now available from mainstream publisher Orbit Books.

328) Brian McClellan (250,000+)

Brian McClellan is the author of The Powder Mage Trilogy.

329) Duncan M. Hamilton (220,000+)

Duncan Hamilton is a self-published success story, releasing his debut novel The Tattered Banner in 2013 and now hitting the mainstream with Tor Books.

330) Karen Russell (210,000+)
Karen Russell has sold over 180,000 copies of Swamplandia! in paperback and 30,000 in hardcover.

331) James Barclay (200,000+)
James Barclay has sold more than 200,000 copies of his Raven and Ascendants of Estorea series in the UK alone. 

332) R. Scott Bakker (200,000+)

According to Overlook Books' PR copy for The White Luck Warrior, Bakker's four previous fantasy novels have sold over 125,000 copies for them. For a small American publishing house, that's decent. This figure also does not include Bakker's Canadian sales from Penguin or British/Commonwealth sales from Orbit (and Orbit report that they are very happy with Bakker's performance for them), or American sales from fans opting for one of the other editions. On this basis, the 125,000 figure should be taken as being at the lower end of sales. Bakker has also said his books have sold “hundreds of thousands” of copies in total. A Canadian media report that his novels have sold over 1 million copies does seem a bit on the high end, however.

333) Paolo Bacigalupi (200,000+)
The Windup Girl has sold more than 200,000 copies to date.

334) Jaye Wells (200,000+)
Jaye Wells is the author of the Sabina Kane series.

335) Lauren Oliver (200,000+)

Lauren Oliver is the author of the Delirium YA dystopia series.

336) James Lovegrove (200,000+)
James Lovegrove has sold more than 100,000 copies of his Pantheon series by itself.

337) Ilona Andrews (200,000+)

Ilona Andrews is a pen name for husband-and-wife team Ilona and Andrew Gordon, who have written multiple novels together in the fantasy and paranormal romance genres.

338) Daniel H. Wilson (160,000+)
Daniel H. Wilson has sold over 160,000 copies of his novel Robopocalypse by itself.

339) Richard Morgan (150,000+)

Richard Morgan has 150,000 copies of his SF and fantasy novels in print in the UK alone. His worldwide sales will be considerably higher. Expect his sales to shoot up once the Altered Carbon TV show hits Netflix in late 2017.

340) Jeff VanderMeer (150,000+)

Jeff VanderMeer has sold over 150,000 copies of his Southern Reach series. With his many other books added, his true sales are much higher than this.

341) Adam Roberts (150,000+)
Adam Roberts has sold more than 150,000 copies of his Tolkien pastiche The Soddit by itself. Combined with his many other books, his total figure is likely much higher.

342) Glen Duncan (150,000+)
Glen Duncan has sold more than 150,000 copies of his novel The Last Werewolf by itself.

343) Luke Scull (150,000+)

Luke Scull has sold over 150,000 copies of The Grim Company series.

344) Glenda Larke (135,000+)
Glenda Larke has sold more than 135,000 copies of her Stormlords Trilogy alone, not counting her other books. 

345) Emily St. John Mandel (134,000+)

Emily St. John Mandel is the author of Station Eleven.

346) Benedict Jacka (130,000+)

Benedict Jacka is the author of the Alex Verus series.

347) John Gwynne (120,000+)

John Gwynne has sold over 120,000 copies of his Faithful and the Fallen fantasy series.

348) T.S. Orgel (120,000+)

A gestalt writing entity, consisting of brothers Tom and Stephan Orgel, have sold over 120,000 copies of their Orcs vs. Dwarves series).

349) Hannu Rajaniemi (100,000+)
Hannu Rajaniemi has sold over 100,000 copies of his SF novels The Quantum Thief, The Fractal Prince and The Causal Angel.

350) Juliet Marillier (100,000+)_

Juliet Marillier has sold over 100,000 copies of the Sevenwaters series in Australia alone.

351) Cecilia Dart-Thornton (100,000+)

Cecilia Dart-Thornton is the author of the Bitterbynde series, which has sold over 100,000 copies in Australia alone.

352) James Islington (100,000)

James Islington has sold over 100,000 copies of his self-published fantasy debut, The Shadow of What Was Lost.

353) Vaughn Heppner (100,000+)

Vaughn Heppner is the author of the Doom Star series.

354) Cherie Priest (100,000+)

Cherie Priest is the author of The Clockwork Century, among other works.

355) Sally Green (100,000+)

Sally Green is the author of Half Bad.

356) Miles Cameron (100,000+) (fantasy only)

Miles Cameron sold 20,000 copies of his novel The Red Knight in 2013 alone. With the publication of more books in the Traitor Son series, his total sales in that series now exceed 100,000. He has sold more than 200,000 other novels under the name Christian Cameron, most notably the historical Tyrant series about Alexander the Great, as well as the Long War and Chivalry series.

357) Michael Cobley (100,000+)

Orbit SF author Michael Cobley has sold over 70,000 copies of his novels in ebook alone. The total figure will be significantly higher.

358) Vasily Mahanenko (100,000+)

Mahanenko is a guiding light in the “LitRPG” movement. He is best-known for the Way of the Shaman series.

359) Will Wight (75,000+)

A self-published fantasy author who has sold over 75,000 copies of his books, The Traveller's Gate Trilogy and Elder Empire series.

360) Tom Lloyd (75,000)
The Twilight Reign series had sold 70,000 copies by 2011.

361) Tim C. Taylor (75,000+)

Tim C. Taylor is the author of The Reality War series.

362) Russell Kirkpatrick (70,000+)
Russell Kirkpatrick had sold 70,000 copies of the Orbit editions of his map-heavy Fires of Heaven trilogy by 2008.

363) Lissa Price (50,000+)

Lissa Price has sold over 50,000 copies of her Starters/Enders duology.

364) Elliott James (50,000+)

Elliott James has sold over 50,000 copies of the Pax Arcana series.

365) Myke Cole (40,000+)

Myke Cole's military fantasy series has sold over 40,000 copies to date.

366) Andrew Michael Hurley (40,000+)

Andrew Michael Hurley is the author of the award-winning, literary but supernaturally-tinged novel The Loney.

367) Angus Watson (40,000+)

Angus Watson is the author of the Iron Age historical fantasy series.

368) Kameron Hurley (35,000+)

Kameron Hurley had sold about 35,000 copies of her Bel Dame Apocrypha series and The Mirror Empire by early 2015. Her total sales by now will be significantly higher.

369) Paul Hoffman (20,000)

Paul Hoffman is the author of The Left Hand of God and several sequels.

  

Figures Not Available

J.G. Ballard, Philip K. Dick etc: 'classic' authors of yesteryear have few reliable sales figures available for them. In some cases lots of reprints and complex foreign sales deals means that this information is simply not available or reliable when it is so.

China Mieville: sales figures for this author also seem to be unavailable, despite his profile and clear success. The same for Clive Barker, despite his lengthy career.

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