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Most Popular Genres and Sub-Genres?

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S.R. Tooms

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Forgive me if this has been listed elsewhere... I spent an hour or so googling my fat tail off to no avail.

Does anyone have a definitive list for which book genres sell the most? And specifically what sub-genres/categories in each of these is topping the charts?

From what I saw (unsure of its accuracy) the big players are:

-Romance/Erotica
-Mystery, thriller, suspense
-Fantasy
-Horror?

I have no data on the sub-genres of these either. Is humor/comedy anywhere on the list? Or is that assumed to be within a few of those other categories?
 

Hopefully WLCT

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Anything with sex seems to sell well.

I remember reading last year a very popular s&m (wink wink) book and I couldn't get beyond the first 50 pages. It doesn't matter the amount of sex in a book for some people if the story is so badly written. I feel that a lot of people equate sex with love. For me it's romance, which isn't always about the sex. I love the chase and then the (hopefully) happy ending.
 

Laer Carroll

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To satisfy your curiosity? Or because you want to pursue the most popular markets? If so, this is a two-edged sword: the most popular markets also have the most writers competing for attention. Also trends come and go, and it takes an average of two years for a book to get published through trade publishers.
 

WeaselFire

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Does anyone have a definitive list for which book genres sell the most?
Sure. Publisher's Weekly.

Now, for which day/week/month/year/decade do you want to know? It changes as to the whims of the reading public.

Of course, knowing really doesn't help a writer. If you intend to write to the market, you already lost the race.

Jeff
 

S.R. Tooms

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To satisfy your curiosity? Or because you want to pursue the most popular markets? If so, this is a two-edged sword: the most popular markets also have the most writers competing for attention. Also trends come and go, and it takes an average of two years for a book to get published through trade publishers.

Mainly for curiosity. I hear a lot of conflicting information.

It would be nice to see an actual breakdown of both number of books purchased, number of books written, and number of purchasers for each category compared to one another.

If they have a cute little updated pie chart showing which genre (and sub-genre!) cuts the biggest slice and so on.
 

dondomat

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Filigree

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S. R. Tooms, I hope you are doing this just out of curiosity. Knowing the relative market strength for each genre can help authors with estimates of possible future sales, and whether a specific book might be worth the production costs. Marketing committees do this sort of comparison all the time.

Just don't use those cute little pie charts as a foolproof metric, or as another excuse to not write. What's 'popular' in book-buying can change wildly, almost overnight.

If you look at the figures in Dondomat's first link, you might notice 'Christian fiction' edged out 'Romance' in the last quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of 2011, in at least the ebook market. Shortly thereafter 'Fifty Shades of Grey' exploded public awareness of the erotica market, helping lift romance and erotic Romance higher on the scale.
 
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LJD

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I have no data on the sub-genres of these either. Is humor/comedy anywhere on the list? Or is that assumed to be within a few of those other categories?

Well, taking romance, which is the best-selling genre in all the numbers I've seen lately, and the only one I'm familiar with...

The sub-genres I always see in any list of sub-genres:
-contemporary (sometimes split into series/single title)
-historical
-paranormal
-romantic suspense

But there are others. Like romantic comedy. However, a romantic comedy can generally be considered one of the above too. (Often contemporary.) And humor isn't an all or nothing sort of thing anyway.

So I see romantic comedy on some lists of sub-genres, but not all, and I think what people consider a romantic comedy varies a bit as well. My novella (see avatar) was tagged as a romantic comedy by my publisher, which I was not expecting.
 
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HapiSofi

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A datum that's been reliable for some decades now: genre share of the total market tends to be fairly stable. Mysteries compete with mysteries, and romances compete with romances. They don't eat each other's market share.
 

cruellae

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The list of best selling books is nothing like I would have expected. I wonder what makes those particular classics at the top, A Tale of Two Cities, The Little Prince, Lolita, etc. stand out so much.
 
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