Do Fantasy Books Make Money?
Ollie Ander
Is probably just a couple cats in a trench-coat—the hair shedding and sunlight napping are highly suspect.
A "real writer" isn’t in it for the money, they say, but it’s nice to have some idea of the highs and lows your chosen genre can reach. If you’re putting your eggs into a basket that’s never had a single successful hatch, who wouldn’t want to know that? So let’s talk about the fantasy genre’s profitability, the achievable but extraordinary exceptions, and how to sell to the fantasy genre’s strengths.
Fantasy Book Sales
In an article from June of this year (2024), Gloria Russell with $ Self-Publishing School$ reports that Fantasy is among the top selling genres across Amazon, if not currently the highest. And according to $ Dimitrije Curcic$ with $ WordsRated$ , not only do Fantasy and Sci-Fi book sales collectively bring in $590 millions dollars per year to the USA alone, but Fantasy books sales specifically, grew 45.3% from 2020 to 2021, surpassed only in individual growth by graphic novels. The genre is booming!
I wish I could supply hard numbers on Kindle Direct Publishing’s genre sales, let alone their overall gross income, but Amazon does not publicly release income reports. As the leading competitor to the entire publishing market, this leaves us all with little to do other than speculate over how profitable any genre of book truly is in today’s market.
Do fantasy books make money?
Yes! Reports show increased sales across the board since the literary consumption boom of the pandemic. The Fantasy genre in particular has experienced a wave of renewed interest spurred by the $ Romantasy subgenre$ trending on Booktok. Fantasy is making money now more than ever!
The Sanderson Effect
When Brandon Sanderson broke Kickstarter records in 2023 for $ his secret projects campaign,$ it got a lot of people wondering about the profitability of being an author. Sanderson is an undeniable exception to the norm. We don’t all have several nationally beloved fantasy series under our belts, but seeing the genuine interest in audiences brought with it a renewed faith in the value of being an author. 185,341 backers were willing to invest a total of $41,754,153 to read upcoming, undisclosed fantasy titles.
So although there is no good way to get the net income of your average non-bestselling fantasy author (without emailing hundreds of them), there’s plenty we can draw from the stand-out successes like Sanderson on how to make money on your fantasy books!
How Fantasy Books Make Money
As exemplified in Sanderson’s Kickstarter triumph, fantasy readers are dedicated fans. The statistic that most authors don’t make meaningful sales until they’ve released several books, or that profit is exponential to one’s backlog, is even truer for the fantasy genre. Fantasy readers are drawn to consistent writers and are willing to invest in longer series.
As seen with the rise of Romantasy, you can find success with $ write-to-market$ , but the true value of writing in the fantasy genre (and how big fantasy authors make the most money), is through dedication to the fanbase—and that never goes out of trend!
All that said, you’ll want to give your fantasy book its best shot on release too. Bundle sales are great, but presales are better. This post on $ the best time to publish a fantasy novel$ could help determine an ideal release date that will domino readers into purchasing even more of your fantasy titles!
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