How do you research author statistics?

Some industry journal might contain the information you're looking for. Publisher's Weekly?

This is a pretty subjective thing to try and nail down. What's your benchmark?

If it's sales, you could probably get info from the publishers (though remember, a book might come out in hardback with one publisher and in softback with a second publisher, and in the UK with a third publisher, etc.)

Beyond that, it's taste. NYTimes Best Seller listings might offer some help, but then you could argue that to get on that, you need a massive publisher behind you with great advertising budgets and the clout to get you just inside the bookstore door... or the one that floated Oprah's boat this month.

Out of interest, why do you wanna know?

NTG said:

I'm starting a project of reading some of the top (as in most prolific, not necessarily best quality) authors in various genres. I'm working through Tom Clancy, about to start on Danielle Steel (*ick*), and may someday get around to Stephen King (!shudder!).

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Well, put Nora Roberts on your list. She sells like crazy!

Susan G.

Honestly, a really good (and simple) way to do this is to go to the nearest large chain bookstore. Go to the genre(s) you write. See who has the most shelf space, whose books are turned face-forward instead of spine-forward, and who has the in-store/end-of-aisle displays promoting their work. Those authors are either the people whose work is selling best right now or who are tried-and-true best-selling writers.

Authors

You don't really need exact numbers and ranking. Stephen King is one of teh best-selling writers ever, and the top writers are nearly always easy to put into a group unto themselves, even if you lack exact numbers.

But for adult fiction, Danielle Steel has passed the half billion mark, so has actually sold more copies of her novels than anyone.

And Stephen King is not only one of the top selling writers of all time, he's also one of the very best. And if you ick on Danielle Steel, reading her is probably a mistake because you won't learn very much about why reader half pushed her over the half billion mark.

Reading top writers is a good thing, but only if you like what you're reading.

First you need to say wha you mean by top. Most popular, best selling, highest earning, loved by critics?

I don't think you can get what you want, doing it that way. It seems to me that every break-out book HAS to be viewed in its time AND against what was out at the same time.

And since it's easier, I would start with the more modern ones you can find, simply because you will have an i mediate frame of reference. Take Harry Potter. Why was that the break-out hit it was? Was this kids book a hit with parents? Why did the UK publisher reprint the book with more adult covers so that adult readers didn't have the stigma of being seen reading a kids' book?

Is it the literary version of Xena and Hercules? That all the role-playing kids were now adults and wanted to tap into a genre they liked? Is it the quality of the writing? Does it hit a social nerve?

Then look at the second book by the author. Is it a straight sequel or is it just in the same genre? Maybe it's a series that can stand alone.

However, I wouldn't wade through the entire body of work of any one author. The reason for this can be seen on the front cover. Which is bigger, the author's name or the book title? I will buy a Terry Pratchett or a Robert B. Parker book, sight-unseen. I know what they will deliver and like it. At a certain point, most BIG authors go on their name before the book or what it says.

Perhaps something else to look at would be why some books exploded. Why did Lord of the Rings explode in the 60's? Valley of the Dolls? I could go on, but won't, because again, beyond some major block-buster books, it still comes down to taste.

Another issue is the circularity of bestsellerdom. Many books by top-selling authors are bestsellers because the authors have legions of fans who'll go out and snap up any new book by that author. Would the book have become a bestseller under any other circumstances? There's no real way to know.

A better exercise might be to identify authors of huge popularity and analyze their first bestselling book.

Also, in your first message you said top = most prolific. In a subsequent one, you said top = top-selling. Which do you mean? The two are very different. Look at Thomas Harris, for instance.

Don't rely on announced print runs or sales figures. They may be exaggerated--announced print runs are routinely inflated by publishers--or misleadingly stated. For instance, an author may be described as having ten million books in print--but that doesn't mean he sold ten million books, just that ten million were printed.

- Victoria

NTG said:

I want to increase my familiarity with hugely-successful authors, to try to understand, if I can, exactly what it is that makes so many people want to read them.

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You don't have to read everything by a particular author to understand why s/he's so popular. That's because once a writer has hooked an audience with their first few books, their readers know what to expect and will buy subsequent books sight unseen.

I've read only one Danielle Steel novel in my life. That was 25 years ago, and I was stuck somewhere with nothing to read--the only books on hand were Thurston House, by Danielle Steel, and Princess Daisy, by Judith Krantz (another hugely successful author).

Both books were utter dreck, but 25 years later I remember them both well enough to understand why they were bestsellers. I don't need to read anything else by Steel (or Krantz, for that matter) to identify what made them so successful; the formula was right there. All of their other books, as far as I can tell, have been variations on those formulas.

I also don't have to read them because most of Danielle Steel's loyal readers probably aren't going to be interested in my books. The keys to her writing success are not necessarily going to be mine (other than the fact that she's obviously much better at planting her butt in a chair and writing, instead of, say, farting around on the Internet, than I am. But I still don't have to read her books to know that.).

People who read Danielle Steel already know what to expect from her latest book, and will buy it sight unseen. It doesn't even have to be a very good book; it will sell on the strength of her name and what she's written so far.

This happens with plenty of authors: Stephen King (who I like), Dean Koontz (who I don't), Dan Brown, JK Rowling, John Grisham, John LeCarre, Michael Connelly, Jan Karon, Robert Jordan, Anne McCaffrey, Tom Clancy, Anne Rivers Siddons, Patricia Cornwell, and Nora Roberts, to name a few--a very few. You'll be amazed at how many "hugely-successful authors" there are out there, once you start looking. If you're going to read everything they've ever written in an attempt to figure out the secrets of their successes, when are you ever going to find time to write?

NTG said:

I want to increase my familiarity with hugely-successful authors, to try to understand, if I can, exactly what it is that makes so many people want to read them. I realize that in the present, people want to read them because they are already well-known. But what was it that connected with readers back when the readers didn't know that author, and just had to judge by the content of the book?

I think not. I read Stephen King because he tells great stories.

You seem to have a rather negative opinion of genre fiction.

And, of course, to do that, I want to know which authors actually are the most widely read. It's a research project.

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You can find that information in a matter of minutes.

If you're looking for the magic formular, you are as likely to find the step-by-step instructions to change base metals into gold.

There are so many factors to work in besides the book itself.

If you want to emulate the bestseller level of success, there is only one, surefire, guaranteed, common link. All the authors wrote.

Do that and you're on the same road.

Write. Forget about what they did. Just do what you do. Then do it some more. And again. And again. If you have the commitment, a spot of talent and huge dollop of luck, you'll be there in that list.

NTG said:

. . .I want to know which authors actually are the most widely read. It's a research project.

NTG

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You might want to consider asking librarians. Circulation statistics will tell a story as much as will bestseller lists. Many libraries have question-by-email options on their websites, so you need not be limited to your local area.

A very recent issue of Publishers Weekly, which you should be able to find in a library, focused on bestsellers. It was amazing how few names monopolize the lists. You might want to find that issue of PW, and you might want to scan bestseller lists for the last year, say, to discern patterns.

From time to time, someone writes a book on how to write a bestseller. You might want to consider at least browsing through a couple of those.

Some other fine ideas have been posted in response to the inquiry, too.

--Ken

I think the big question is, how much time do you have? And, like someone said, superlatives like best selling don't necessarily equate with best writing. If you go to the Random House website, I think there is still a list somewhere of what their staff determined to be the top 100 books of the twentieth-century (I know, they published most of them). By the way, if you find the list, ULYSSES is number one.

While you are considering whom you might spend your time with, you may wish to consider Doctorow, Conroy, Dickey, McMurtry, Styron, McCullough, Rand, Wouk, Vidal, to name a few. All of these people write literary fiction, and this is where I go when someone asks about great and prolific writers of the twentieth-century.

Someone suggested you read the first book written by whom you determine by your criteria to be a top author. In my opinion, this is good advice, but I also suggest reading one of that writer's latter works soon afterwards.

This will provide you with a perspective on that author's growth, and also the pattern that might have been employed throughout that person's career (as someone also mentioned, this is often how it works, whether people like it or not).

I always suggest reading the twentieth-century elite to develop a foundation. Few want to do this in today's busy search for instant achievement, but here are a few suggestions: With Faulkner, you might want to read SOLDIER'S PAY and then THE REIVERS; with Firtzgerald, THIS SIDE OF PARADISE followed by GATSBY; with Capote, OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS followed by BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S;

In each instance, their greatness to come is evidenced in some way in their earliest work, and these nascent efforts provide any aspiring writer with an extraordinary platform from which to learn and develop. I just don't think there's a short cut, and if there is one, I'm certainly not smart enough to have found it.

Good luck with you writing--and with your reading.

NTG said:

Sorry, didn't quite track you. Think not what?
Which genre? I like some a lot, and others less. But in every case there is something to learn, and probably every genre, not just science fiction, has its 90% crud vs. 10% not-crud.
A matter of minutes? Wonderful! (Where?)

NG

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I was referring to your assertion that people read King because he is famous.