I was watching another of Brandon Sanderson's lectures today (highly recommend them by the way), and he reckons the largest selling genre in fiction is children's books (of all ages) and next in line is romance. That really surprised me
When I saw the thread title I thought "romance". Didn't know about children's books but it makes sense. This really varies with demographics though. This forum has a lot of young adults so it's no surprise that fantasy is the biggie among the regulars.
Presumably he's talking about the present day, not all-time sales figures. If you look at recent years, it's not surprising that children's book are the biggest sellers; you have heard of Harry Potter, right? And as for romance, '50 Shades Of Grey' might have a little something to do with that.
Romance has been the biggest selling adult genre for a long time. 50 Shades might have increased erotica sales though and hopefully some of the readers discovered good erotica along the way!
Harry who? I know i know, and i suppose the likes of hunger games and twilight helped along the way too. Still surprised me though. I'd have thought thriller/crime would've been higher than romance.
Hi, Is children's books really a genre? I would have thought it's simply a category that covers nearly all genres. It doesn't surprise me that it sells though. Look at the size of the audience - ie children! I expected romance to top the pops. It has for many many years. And if you look at one of the genres I write in - urban fantasy - then just go down the list of best sellers - they're nearly all paranormal romance / erotica. That's a sub-genre that seems to have shunted aside everything else in its path. For me I write epic fantasy, urban fantasy and sci fi (mostly space opera). Urban fantasy is my worst seller by miles. (It might do better if I stuck a cover on it with half naked hotties everywhere - but then I'd have some explaining to do to readers!) Epic fantasy sells best for me. And sci fi's up and down. Cheers, Greg.
Hi greg, yeah i think you're right about childrens being a category. I believe brandon said (i think we're on first name terms now that i've watched hours of his lectures) that childrens aren't divided by genre but by age group. The lectures are two years old though so maybe its changed. I've read (and loved) Diana Gabaldon's outlander series and she said hers books were frequently listed under different genres depending on which medium was selling them (romance/historical fiction/fantasy etc).
If you call children books a genre, then of course it's tops. Most adult readers are female, so romance is clearly tops for the adult market. Sex sells, simple. Even when the genre isn't romance, a fair proportion of high selling books have romance in it, just to sell books. Wouldn't come close. If it's in the top five, then it's only because a lot of books in that genre (probably a majority of top sellers) cross over into romance territory.