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Urban Fantasy Come True

This week, 11 of the Top 20 Fantasy bestsellers in the US are urban fantasy titles, including the Top 3. Most people are aware of the growth of urban fantasy over recent years, but I wonder how many are aware of the degree to which it now dominates the fantasy bestseller lists? This week’s chart shouldn’t be a surprise, either. Looking back over the fantasy bestseller charts of recent years, there’s a clear trend:

2004: 1 urban fantasy title in the Top 20.
2005: 4 urban fantasy titles.
2006: 5 urban fantasy titles.
2007: 7 urban fantasy titles.

Without any doubt, urban fantasy has changed the face of SF and Fantasy publishing in the US over recent years and there’s no sign that it won’t continue to do so.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 at 11:55 pm by Tim Holman and is filed under All posts, Commentary, Contents, Orbit US. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Urban Fantasy Come True”

  1. Rob B Says:
    March 6th, 2008 at 10:56 pm

    I just blogged about this the other day.

  2. Brendon D Says:
    March 7th, 2008 at 3:04 pm

    Any chance of the list of books or a website that shows the names and numbers?

  3. Tim Holman Says:
    March 7th, 2008 at 7:15 pm

    Brendon: we can’t print the list, I’m afraid, but I should have said that these stats are based on the data supplied by Neilsen Bookscan - a company that tracks retail book sales and is widely acknowledged by the industry to provide accurate market data. The urban fantasy authors who appear regularly on the fantasy bestseller lists in the US include (in alphabetical order!) Kelley Armstrong, Patricia Briggs, Jim Butcher, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Kim Harrison.

    Rob: thanks for letting us know - sounds as if a lot of people are thinking about it!

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