Some inaccurate Gemmell figures

So I thought I needed to do a follow-up to my last, esp in light of Stan Nichols replying to my last. To get more of a clue I fetched up the list of winners and shortlisted books for the Legend award to see what Goodreads ratings they have – yes, I know that’s hardly scientific, but it’s a handy rough guide for how books have sold in the US & UK markets so it’s a starting point:

2009

Best novel: Andrzej Sapkowski for Blood of Elves – 20k

Nominated: Juliet Marillier for Heir to Sevenwaters – 10k

Nominated: Brandon Sanderson for The Hero of Ages -128k

Nominated: Joe Abercrombie for Last Argument of Kings -61k

Nominated: Brent Weeks for The Way of Shadows -98k

2010

Best novel: Graham McNeill for Empire 335 ratings

Nominated: Joe Abercrombie for Best Served Cold -32k

Nominated: Pierre Pevel for The Cardinal’s Blades – 575 ratings

Nominated: Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson for The Gathering Storm – 89k

Nominated: Brandon Sanderson for Warbreaker – 53k

2011

Best novel: Brandon Sanderson for The Way of Kings – 129k

Nominated: Pierre Pevel for The Alchemist in the Shadows 0 269 ratings

Nominated: Brent Weeks for The Black Prism – 52k

Nominated: Peter V. Brett for The Desert Spear – 51k

Nominated: Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson for Towers of Midnight – 87k

Nominated: Markus Heitz for The War of the Dwarves – 3k

2012

Best novel: Patrick Rothfuss for The Wise Man’s Fear – 230k

Nominated: Brandon Sanderson for The Alloy of Law – 67k

Nominated: Kristen Britain for Blackveil – 7k

Nominated: Joe Abercrombie for The Heroes – 25k

Nominated: William King for Blood of Aenarion – 200 ratings

2013

Best novel: Brent Weeks for The Blinding Knife – 36k

Nominated: Helen Lowe for The Gathering of the Lost – 464 ratings

Nominated: Mark Lawrence for King of Thorns – 32k

Nominated: Joe Abercrombie for Red Country – 19k

Nominated: Jay Kristoff for Stormdancer – 8k

2014

Best novel: Mark Lawrence for Emperor of Thorns – 24k

Nominated: Peter V. Brett for The Daylight War – 32k

Nominated: Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson for A Memory of Light – 61k

Nominated: Scott Lynch for The Republic of Thieves – 40k

Nominated: Adrian Tchaikovsky for War Master’s Gate – 537 ratings

(because I was curious, seeing that as the most obvious outlier, I checked book 1 in that series: 6k ratings – very good, but not high enough to be an explanation)

2015

Best novel: Brandon Sanderson for Words of Radiance -81k

Nominated: Joe Abercrombie for Half a King – 24k

Nominated: John Gwynne for Valour – 3k

(was also curious about that one, book 1 won the Morningstar award but only has 5k ratings, so not enormous, Valour’s got over 200 Amazon reviews, more than Prince of Fools so maybe it’s sold better than this suggests, maybe just highlights the flaws of my method and original thinking!)

Nominated: Mark Lawrence for Prince of Fools – 11k

Nominated: Brent Weeks for The Broken Eye – 21k

So there are a number of outliers there, Pierre Pavel being one, McNeill, King, Lowe, & Tchaikovsky. Pavel is translated from French so there *may* be a distortion there given Goodreads is an English language  site, (similarly Heitz is I believe bigger in his home country than in English language territories) McNiell and King are Games Workshop books which I suspect distorts the figures, but Lowe and Tchaikovsky are very interesting results that my theory certainly can’t explain. I know Tchaikovsky is active on social media and his series has a good following, but not to the extent that he could (or would) game the vote, and I assume Lowe is the same on that front.

So all this doesn’t prove or disprove much, not least because some of these books weren’t massive sellers at the outset. Books like Hero of Ages have sold vastly more than those they lost to, but I believe Sanderson’s sales were more modest at the time.

However, it doesn’t offer a huge amount of hope to a minnow like me for next year’s award (Stranger of Tempest is eligible for next year, this year I’ve got Old Man’s Ghosts on the longlist but really almost no-one bought that and it’s less of a Gemmell type fantasy anyway).

But for all this, there’s little more to say until the shortlist is released (on Friday I believe?) so I’ll do a follow-up when I can get near a computer over the weekend.