2008 Best Selling Fantasy Books Series
http://www.educationbuzz.net/articles/2122/1/2008-Best-Selling-Fantasy-Books-Series/Page1.html
Scarlett Moore
Scarlett Moore writes reviews of urban and contemporary fantasy books written by award winning authors like Kelley Armstrong and Chris Marie Green. Come explore your darker side at http://bestfantasystories.com. By Scarlett Moore
Published on 01/19/2009
Fantasy books series, a sequence of books identified together as a group, have grown in popularity over the past few years. In 2008 many of the best seller lists included fantasy books that were part of a series and fantasy books box sets are commonly produced by publishers. This article focuses on two fantasy book authors whose book series saw record sales.
Last year fantasy books, in particular, urban and young adult fantasy, dominated the best seller lists. Stephenie Meyer's Twilight books topped the NY Times Best Seller's list for several weeks, as did Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire Mystery books. Both series were catapulted from being read by loyal urban fantasy fans to worldwide exposure due to wide and small screen projects. The Twilight movie grossed $70.5 million dollars in North American box-office receipts during its opening weekend. This gave it the distinction of being the 4th highest November grossing film of all time.
This past summer Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire Mystery books were made into a new HBO series titled True Blood. Although the first few episodes drew moderate audience interest it quickly grew due in part to a massive online social networking campaign by HBO. The show quickly became the network's most popular series since The Sopranos and Sex and the City according to Associated Press reports. The viewing audience averaged 6.8 million per week, evidenced by the social networking activity surrounding the show. Fans flocked to the HBO True Blood Wiki site in droves. HBO even produced a commercial highlighting some of the comments left at the site by fans. The Internet was buzzing with conversations about this season's cliffhanger and message boards are still active even though the season is over. Anna Paquin's recent Golden Globe win in the Best Actress series for her portrayal of Sookie Stackhouse will likely re-energize fans.
All of this culminated in record sales for fantasy book titles. Of the Top 30 Best Selling Books in 2008 (based on USA Today data), 3 books fall under the mystery genre, 4 are general fiction, 5 are romance books, 8 fall into the non-fiction category, and 10 books on the list are fantasy books. All but two of the fantasy books on the list are part of a series:
#1: New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
#2: Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
#3: Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
#4: Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
#7: Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling
#8: Murder Game by Christine Feehan
#18: The Host by Stephenie Meyer
#22: The Pagan Stone by Nora Roberts
#29: Watchmen by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons
#30: Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
Stephenie Meyer and Charlaine Harris titles have high rankings on best seller lists published by the NY Times, Barnes and Nobles, and Amazon.com. This trend will likely continue in 2009 as filming of the second Twilight movie (titled New Moon) and True Blood Season 2 get underway.
This past summer Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire Mystery books were made into a new HBO series titled True Blood. Although the first few episodes drew moderate audience interest it quickly grew due in part to a massive online social networking campaign by HBO. The show quickly became the network's most popular series since The Sopranos and Sex and the City according to Associated Press reports. The viewing audience averaged 6.8 million per week, evidenced by the social networking activity surrounding the show. Fans flocked to the HBO True Blood Wiki site in droves. HBO even produced a commercial highlighting some of the comments left at the site by fans. The Internet was buzzing with conversations about this season's cliffhanger and message boards are still active even though the season is over. Anna Paquin's recent Golden Globe win in the Best Actress series for her portrayal of Sookie Stackhouse will likely re-energize fans.
All of this culminated in record sales for fantasy book titles. Of the Top 30 Best Selling Books in 2008 (based on USA Today data), 3 books fall under the mystery genre, 4 are general fiction, 5 are romance books, 8 fall into the non-fiction category, and 10 books on the list are fantasy books. All but two of the fantasy books on the list are part of a series:
#1: New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
#2: Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
#3: Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
#4: Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
#7: Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling
#8: Murder Game by Christine Feehan
#18: The Host by Stephenie Meyer
#22: The Pagan Stone by Nora Roberts
#29: Watchmen by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons
#30: Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
Stephenie Meyer and Charlaine Harris titles have high rankings on best seller lists published by the NY Times, Barnes and Nobles, and Amazon.com. This trend will likely continue in 2009 as filming of the second Twilight movie (titled New Moon) and True Blood Season 2 get underway.