Back in January 2024, I assembled the latest incarnation of my "SFF All-Time Sales List," which had sales figures of 37 million for Sarah J. Maas (in 32nd place on the list) and 40 million for Brandon Sanderson (in 29th place). These were very healthy figures.
The updated figures for Sanderson (via the Edelweiss catalogue) now have him at 45 million, which would move him up to around 24th place. Very healthy and impressive. Unsurprising as in the meantime he's released his long-awaited fifth Stormlight Archive novel, Wind and Truth, and is now working on a return to his perennially popular Mistborn sequence..
But the updated figures for Maas, straight from her publisher, are eye-popping. The updated figures put her at 75 million (!), which would rocket her up to around 17th on the list and instantly make her one of the biggest-selling, living fantasy writers.
To be clear, I don't think Maas has sold another 40 million books in just eighteen months. Instead, her publisher has noted that she is now published in forty languages, and it's likely they'd been severely underestimating her prior sales. Updated sales information from foreign sales is the most likely source for this large-seeming jump.
It is worth noting that Maas published her first novel only in 2014, nine years after Sanderson published his first book. This shows the full, unmitigated firepower of the Romantasy subgenre and its enthusiastic fanbase eclipses even that of fans of hard magic systems and intricate worldbuilding.
With sales growth like this, Maas is now looking likely to catch up to the likes of George R.R. Martin (at around 95 million) and the late Sir Terry Pratchett and Robert Jordan (at just over 100 million apiece), and this is without any adaptation of her works. When one finally appears, I can imagine that only increasing her sales presence and profile further.
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