“More than 50% of all traditionally-published book sales of any format in the US now happen on Amazon.com.”
That’s just amazing. But I found something even more amazing this week.
Author Earnings released a report this week of their analysis of a million titles on Amazon. Data Guy, the tech guy behind the software gathering the information and crunching it, posted this graph in the comments.
Do you see the amazing thing?
Well of course you do, I gave it away in the title of the blog. Science fiction and fantasy sell MORE units than thrillers.
More.
What?!
For, like, ever I thought SFF was a tiny portion of the market. Not so, my friends.
Some may say, well, but this only represents Amazon. What about the channels traditional publishers sell through? Author Earnings explains a way to account for that in their report. Basically just double the size of the purple and red bars. If you do that I think thrillers might just edge SFF out. But it doesn’t dwarf it by any means.
Furthermore, for an indie author, I don’t worry about those other channels because they’re not really a viable option for me. My world is selling online. And the online market for SFF is the SECOND BIGGEST MARKET after Queen Romance.
Oh, BTW, next book in the queue is volume 1 of Lord of Bones. It’s going to start with something like this.
The four men did not leave. Instead, they spread out just a bit in shallow semi-circle in front of Blaze.
Four of them. One of him. There was definitely going to be blood.
“You don’t want to do this,” Blaze said.
The big one drew his sword and swung it a bit to loosen his shoulders. “Oh, but we do. Because you’re not handing over the blackmeal. And we’re not leaving without it.”
No, he was not going to hand that over. Couldn’t. Not if he valued the lives of his wife and boy.
Two of the others drew their swords. The fourth brought his staff up and laid it on his shoulder in a two-handed grip.
The big one would be the obvious target to take first. But Blaze knew that would be a mistake. The big one was there just to focus his attention. To fix Blaze in place. And then the silent one would slice him up the side.
The man with the skinny face said, “Old man, the vultures will be picking your eyes out before lunch.”
Blaze said, “Well, if you’re so determined, let’s not keep them waiting.” And then he rocked forward.
I’ve not forgotten the Dark God series. I will finish it, but I need to get this smaller volume of Lord of Bones out.
Not sure about the name Blaze – it’s a bit… fictiony
What is Lord of Bones about? Another epic fantasy series?
Is there a place where non-authors can look at the cumulative sales of self-published books? Not just the Amazon sales, but the other self-published outlets.
Thanks…the “Captain”
Yes, indeed.
Not that I know of. You have things like Nielsen Bookscan, but I don’t know if Amazon shares all it’s data on indies with them, but you can look 🙂
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