Rebecca Yarros' Empyrean fantasy series has sold (non-paywalled reference) a startling 12 million copies in less than two years, marking it as one of the fastest-selling fantasy series of the 21st Century. The first book in the series, Fourth Wing, was published in May 2023 and was followed by Iron Flame in November 2023 and Onyx Storm in January 2025. Two more books are projected to bring the series to a conclusion.
Onyx Storm itself is the fastest-selling adult novel published in the last twenty years, shifting 2.7 million copies in its first week on sale. Onyx Storm saw bookshop midnight openings, launch parties and other events that haven't been seen since the release of the final Harry Potter novel in 2007, without the dual adult/child appeal of that book.
For comparison, Yarros' sales in two years are approaching half those of Brandon Sanderson's non-Wheel of Time books in twenty (Sanderson has sold 40 million books, with over 12 million of those being his three Wheel of Time novels, for approximately 28 million sales of his solo work). Yarros has sold approximately a quarter of the total sales of her colleague Sarah J. Maas, who has sold just over 40 million books in thirteen years. 12 million is also approximately the same number of books that George R.R. Martin sold of his Song of Ice and Fire series before the TV adaptation began.
The only author who can be said to had a more impressive debut was Patrick Rothfuss, who shifted over 10 million copies of his debut novel The Name of the Wind alone (though nowhere near as fast).
With two more books to come and an adaptation of the books underway at Amazon MGM Studios, it's clear that these figures are only going to continue rising in the future.
What will be interesting to see is if this influx of new readers benefits the rest of the fantasy genre, but it does confirm that Romantasy's current sales dominance is no danger of ending soon.
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