[King Bear]

Can anyone tell me how well SE's novels sell, particularly compared to other major names in fantasy like GRRM, Sanderson, Abercrombie and, well, Goodkind. Remember reading somewhere that it sells nowhere near as much as ASOI&F.

Just wondering how well it's doing in the genre commercially and in terms of readership.

[End of Disc One]

I think at the top of the genre is Jordan, Goodkind, and Martin. Rothfuss had the strongest selling debut and he's probably up there with them now (not sure if results are in for last week). Sanderson got a big boost after working on the Wheel of Time, and he's just a little behind those guys. Not sure where Abercrombie fits in, and whether or not he's ahead of Erikson. Erikson is a ways behind those authors. Dust of Dreams was the first book of his to be a bestseller in the US.

I don't have numbers for any of these, I'm just going off memory.

[Sinisdar Toste]

an recent interview with SE has him mentioning that he doesn't think epic fantasy is in decline, if we take royalty cheques as a measure of success. apparently he's quite satisfied with his income.

[King Bear]

End of Disc One, on 08 March 2011 - 02:31 PM, said:

I think at the top of the genre is Jordan, Goodkind, and Martin. Rothfuss had the strongest selling debut and he's probably up there with them now (not sure if results are in for last week). Sanderson got a big boost after working on the Wheel of Time, and he's just a little behind those guys. Not sure where Abercrombie fits in, and whether or not he's ahead of Erikson. Erikson is a ways behind those authors. Dust of Dreams was the first book of his to be a bestseller in the US.

I don't have numbers for any of these, I'm just going off memory.

Thanks, that's pretty much what I had anticipated. Wish more people would read SE. I'm trying to get my brother into it, but he keeps getting side-tracked with WOT, Anne Bishop, Jacquline Carrey, dragonlance and forgotten realms. Same thing happend when I tried to get him into GGK and Gene Wolfe dammit.

[King Bear]

Sinisdar Toste, on 08 March 2011 - 02:50 PM, said:

an recent interview with SE has him mentioning that he doesn't think epic fantasy is in decline, if we take royalty cheques as a measure of success. apparently he's quite satisfied with his income.

Glad to hear he's doing well out of it. He deserves it.

[Aptorian]

I think I remember somebody, maybe it was Esslemont or Mal, that made a remark about Erikson beginning to recieve some nice fat royalty checks lately.

I also reckon that now that the series is actually finished a lot more people will be willing to invest their time and money in the series. Personally I have been avoiding series like the ASOIAF and WOT because they've been dead in the water for so long that I don't want to get further into them before I know I will get closure.

[End of Disc One]

Clockwork Apt, on 08 March 2011 - 03:03 PM, said:

I think I remember somebody, maybe it was Esslemont or Mal, that made a remark about Erikson beginning to recieve some nice fat royalty checks lately.

Yeah, his advance was so big that he didn't break even until a year or two ago, IIRC. It must be a great feeling to hit that point where you start making money on each book you sell.

[MTS]

As of 2006 it'd sold 250,000 copies, I imagine it's jumped considerably since then.

[Salt-Man Z]

I figured SE had finally made it to the Big Time when I saw the MMPB of DoD on the shelf at Walmart.

[Tarcanus]

Bombur, on 08 March 2011 - 02:57 PM, said:

End of Disc One, on 08 March 2011 - 02:31 PM, said:

I think at the top of the genre is Jordan, Goodkind, and Martin. Rothfuss had the strongest selling debut and he's probably up there with them now (not sure if results are in for last week). Sanderson got a big boost after working on the Wheel of Time, and he's just a little behind those guys. Not sure where Abercrombie fits in, and whether or not he's ahead of Erikson. Erikson is a ways behind those authors. Dust of Dreams was the first book of his to be a bestseller in the US.

I don't have numbers for any of these, I'm just going off memory.

Thanks, that's pretty much what I had anticipated. Wish more people would read SE. I'm trying to get my brother into it, but he keeps getting side-tracked with WOT, Anne Bishop, Jacquline Carrey, dragonlance and forgotten realms. Same thing happend when I tried to get him into GGK and Gene Wolfe dammit.

Haha, there's his problem(bolded). Weis&Hickman and Salvatore hack n' slash is a far cry from the complexity of Malazan. If you can ween him off of those, you may have better luck. As it is, I can almost guarantee he'd try GotM and be one of the quitters because it made no sense to him. But that's just my .02


On topic, one thing that surprised me when The Crippled God was released last week was that no bookstores in my area had it in stock on release day. None. I scoured the countryside and cried for a locksmith, even. When I asked the people behind the counter what was up, they said that the release date was, indeed, the 1st, but that they hadn't gotten any copies in, yet. I am tempted to blame the fact that WMF came out on the same day and the stores had to choose which book to showcase. As it was, WMF got big stands near the front doors and tCG wasn't even in the store, yet. I'm worried that this will really hurt Erikson's chances of hitting the bestsellers lists for his final volume.

[Salt-Man Z]

Tarcanus, on 11 March 2011 - 05:20 PM, said:

I'm worried that this will really hurt Erikson's chances of hitting the bestsellers lists for his final volume.

Well, don't worry.