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Q&A Do Fantasy novels have less readership than a Realistic Fiction novel?

"Realistic Fiction" isn't a single genre. You've got literary fiction, thrillers, mysteries, romances, and more. Each has its own target audience, some wider than others. Moreover, bestseller list...

posted 13y ago by Standback‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-12T20:05:56Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/3230
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T01:44:07Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/3230
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T01:44:07Z (about 5 years ago)
"Realistic Fiction" isn't a single genre. You've got literary fiction, thrillers, mysteries, romances, and more. Each has its own target audience, some wider than others.

Moreover, bestseller lists might be interesting, but they may also be misleading - because most books aren't bestsellers, aren't written to be, aren't marketed to be. What you're really interested in is more along the lines of "average sales of books within the genre over time," and hard statistics on those will be very difficult to garner - but professionals in publishing may be able to give a rough estimate, or compare orders of magnitude.

Here's what I do know: fantasy (and science-fiction) has a wide market of voracious readers, always eager to find something new and exciting, and happy to share new discoveries with the community at large (often with great enthusiasm, and physical intimidation if necessary). It's hard to stand out from the crowd, to differentiate yourself from a glut of books that may or may not be similar to your own. But if you _do_ gain a core fan base, you can do pretty well for yourself, compared with midlist books in other less fannish genres.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2011-06-29T09:15:57Z (over 13 years ago)
Original score: 6