Nathan Bransford - The Forums

My attention was drawn to this recent blog post by Jim C. Hines at http://www.jimchines.com/2010/03/novel- ... ts-part-i/

He shows that fantasy and romance topped the list. I guess having those two genres at the top isn't much of a surprise, but for some reason, I always believed that romance tops sales anywhere, and fantasy would come second. Jim also has a lot of interesting data on publishing.

What do you think of Jim's data?

Would there be any other data available on the most marketable genres? For a writer like me who writes in three different genres, it would be useful to know which ones can be my bread-and-butter and which ones can be for fun.

My immediate thought would be that the sample size is small and the sample population is too specialized, resulting in fantasy showing up bigger than it (probably) actually is. The RWA has some data on their website, and it fits what agents and editors have told me: romance is the 800 pound gorilla by far, with sci-fi-fantasy being next (more fantasy than sci-fi at this point).