Top of the Pile: Best-selling Fiction Authors

With just 42 books of plays and poetry, William Shakespeare tops the list of best-selling fiction authors with estimated sales of 2 – 4 billion copies. Agatha Christie’s right up there with him, with similar sale figures but double the number of titles (85), while Barbara Cartland comes in a distant third. The romance author’s sales are estimated at a trifling 500 million – 1 billion copies of the 723 (no, that’s not a typing error) books she wrote. [Cartland once wrote 23 novels in one year, but is only one of a number of highly prolific writers.)

Here’s the top ten:

Author	Estimated Sales	Genre	Number of books	Nationality
William Shakespeare	2 – 4 billion	Plays & poetry	42	English
Agatha Christie	2 – 4 billion	Whodunits	85	English
Barbara Cartland	500 million – 1 billion	Romance	723	English
Danielle Steel	500 – 800 million	Romance	179	American
Harold Robbins	750 million	Adventure	23	American
Georges Simenon	500 – 700 million	Detective	570	Belgian
Enid Blyton	600 million	Children’s	800	English
Sidney Sheldon	370 – 600 million	Suspense	21	American
J. K. Rowling	500 milion	Children’s	15	British
Gilbert Patten	125 – 500 million	Adolescent adventure	209	American

The full list comprises almost 100 authors. It’s creators note:

While finding precise sales numbers for any given author is nearly impossible, the list is based on approximate numbers provided or repeated by reliable sources. “Best selling” refers to the estimated number of copies sold of all fiction books written or co-written by an author.

They also note:

To keep the list manageable, only authors with estimated sales of at least 100 million are included.

And there are some authors missing. The likes of Miguel de Cervantes, Alexandre Dumas, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Arthur Conan Doyle, Victor Hugo, Jules Verne, Rick Riordan, Jack Higgins and Leon Uris. The list’s creators concede that although there are indications they all have more than 100 million copies in print, “no exact figures could be found”.

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