Vlogger Hank Green recently shared that 50 Shades of Grey has already sold more copies than the number of books Ray Bradbury sold in his lifetime. This doesn’t worry author Neil Gaiman.
In a Tumblr post, he responded to this by pointing out that this isn’t new. “Nothing’s changed,” he wrote. “Some books are, often inexplicably, bestsellers. That’s been the way of it for a hundred and fifty years or more.”
He pointed out that if you look at the annual bestseller lists for previous years, you’ll see how trendy books do really well around publication but tend to fade out over time. Here is an excerpt from his post:
You’ll find a lot of books that sold an unbelievable number of copies when they were fashionable. I’m sure The Revolt of Mamie Stover also sold more books than Ray Bradbury will ever have sold in his whole life in its year. Have you read it? Heard of it? Off the top of my head, Peyton Place in its year, orThe Gospel According to Peanuts, or The Ginger Man, or Jonathan Livingstone Seagull in their years undoubtedly outsold all of Ray Bradbury.
Bradbury, on the other hand, has sold a ton of books ever since he started writing and he continues to sell books. “…he found his readers for his books and his stories in every year,” wrote Gaiman. ” And I’ll wager a hundred years from now he’ll still be read…”