We all know that Darren Shan has sold 10 million copies of his books world wide (he tells us at every available occasion) and that is an amazing achievement (and must have made DS a tidy sum, even allowing royalties of 50 cent per book). You all know what I think of the Shanster, but you can't deny that he appeals to a certain audience (he is big in Japan apparently) and his fans do buy his books.
Now, consider Garth Nix, Antipodean fantasy author. I am a big fan of this guy, especially the Abhorsen trilogy. I think he is original, imaginative and writes really well. I find him inspiring and I would like to think my writing is on a similar wave length to his. Doing a little googling yesterday I discovered that his total sales amount to 4 million. Ok, that is a brilliant amount of books to sell and he doesn't have as many books as our Darren, but I was surprised. 2 million in the USA and Canada, 1.3 million in the UK and Ireland and the rest in his native Oz and NZ. I suppose I was shocked that one of my favourite authors who I consider writes excellent literature hasn't even sold half as many as Darren Shan who writes... well, I can't think of a polite word for it. That's my opinion anyway. Obviously 10 million people think otherwise.
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2 comments:
theres no accounting for taste!!
It's amazing! Poor Garth - who's excellent!
How much is promotion and how much is sheer volume of books, I wonder? It's ten years since CDF has been published yet the Shan-meister must have produced about 25 books in that time????
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