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25 Best-Selling Authors of All Time
Have you ever wondered who the best-selling authors of all time are? Because we have, so we have scoured the internet to find 25 authors who have sold more books than any other living soul, ever and compiled them into one comprehensive list just for you.
From the writers of the world’s most well-known best-sellers like Harry Potter and The Shining to some rather less well-known names, here are the 25 best-selling authors of all time.
William Shakespeare
Number of Copies Sold: Up to 4 billion
Possibly one of the world’s greatest writers and arguably the forefather of modern English literature, William Shakespeare was an English playwright hailing from Stratford-upon-Avon. As the author of some of the world's most famous pieces of literature like Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Macbeth; Shakespeare’s work has been enjoyed all over the world and not just as the plays they were written, but as films, novels, music, TV shows, and much more. It’s now estimated that up to 4 billion copies of Shakespeare's works have been sold since their conception.
Agatha Christie
Number of Copies Sold: Up to 4 billion
World-renowned novelist Agatha Christie is famous for her extensive collection of detective novels which includes famous titles like Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, and The ABC Murders. It’s estimated that Agatha Christie's novels have sold nearly 4 billion copies, rivaling the sales figures of William Shakespeare, despite being born over 3 hundred years after him.
Barbara Cartland
Number of Copies Sold: Up to 1 billion
Known as the queen of romance, Barbara Cartland has produced some of the world’s most beloved romance novels with the likes of The Bored Bridegroom, A Hazard of Hearts, and Love Became Theirs. Born on the 9th of July 1901 in Birmingham, England, Cartland quickly took to writing, completing her first book at the age of only 19. Today, it's estimated that up to 1 billion copies of Cartland’s novels have sold around the world.
Danielle Steel
Number of Copies Sold: Up to 800 million
Danielle is the best-selling living author thanks to her unparalleled talent for writing romance novels. Like Cartland, Steel completed her first book at the age of 19 and has since gone on to write a total of 190 books, that’s an average of more than three books per year which is no mean feat. As a result of her brilliant writing and her aptitude for pumping books out at an alarming rate, it is believed that around 800 million copies of Steel’s book have sold worldwide.
Harold Robbins
Number of Copies Sold: Up to 750 million
Author of no fewer than 25 best-selling novels, Harold Robbins was an American writer who moved to America with his parents when he was young. Focusing heavily on action, Robbins’ novels quickly developed a loyal fan base that eagerly awaited his next big book release. Since releasing his first book, Never Love a Stranger, back in 1948, around 750 million copies of his novels have been sold in 32 languages.
Georges Simenon
Number of Copies Sold: Up to 700 million
Georges Simenon was a Belgian author best known for his books featuring the fictional detective, Jules Maigret. Born in 1903, Simenon had a pivotal role during the Second World War when he was appointed Commissioner of Refugees in 1940 and given the responsibility of housing and feeding around 55,000 refugees. To date, it is believed that nearly 700 million copies of Simenon’s books have been sold.
J.K. Rowling
Number of Copies Sold: Up to 650 million
We all knew that J.K. Rowling was going to appear on this list at some point. Author of one of the world’s most popular fantasy series Harry Potter, Rowling has sold up to 650 million novels and inspired countless films, TV series, and video games since the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone back in 1997.
Enid Blyton
Number of Copies Sold: Up to 600 million
Enid Blyton is the children's author responsible for some of the nation's most treasured adventure novels including The Famous 5, Secret 7, and Malory Towers. Over her long career, Blyton wrote around 700 books, each just as intrepid as the last. Enid Blyton’s books and short stories focused mainly on groups of children and adolescents embarking on exciting adventures and were very popular with an audience of younger readers, which led to around 600 million copies of her books being sold around the world.
Eiichiro Oda
Number of Copies Sold: Up to 535 million
Since the early 90s manga has been gaining popularity across the globe, becoming one of the best-selling style of books. One Piece is one of, if not, the most popular manga of all time, making the author Eiichiro Oda one of the best-selling authors of all time with a massive 535 million copies sold.
Sidney Sheldon
Number of Copies Sold: Up to 500 million
Sidney Sheldon got his first taste of stardom in the 1930s when he started his career working on Broadway plays. After making a name for himself on Broadway, Sheldon moved onto Film and TV where he, yet again, found success in the form of several well-known films and shows like Patty Duke Show and Hart to Hart. It wasn’t until after he turned 50 that Sheldon started writing his best-seller romantic suspense novels. Since then, he has sold between 300-500 million copies of his books in 51 different languages.
Jackie Collins
Number of Copies Sold: Up to 500 million
Jackie Collins was an English novelist and actress famous for her best-selling romance novels that captured the hearts and minds of hundreds of millions of fans from all over the world. Throughout her career, Collins wrote a total of 32 novels, all of which were featured on the New York Times Best Sellers list. Her captivating writing style has led to the sale of nearly 500 million copies of her work.
Gilbert Patten
Number of Copies Sold: Up to 500 million
Gilbert Patten, born in 1866 in Maine, USA, was a prolific writer of dime novels and is perhaps best known for his Frank Merriwell stories. Writing under several pen names, the most famous of which being Burt L. Standish, Patten published over 200 individual books, and, to date, sold around 500 million copies of them.
Dr. Seuss
Number of Copies Sold: Up to 500 million
Theodor Seuss Geisel, more commonly known by his pen name, Dr Seuss, was an American children’s author and cartoonist who is responsible for some of the most popular children’s stories ever written. Some of Dr Seuss’ most famous stories include The Cat in the Hat, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and The Lorax, but all together Seuss published over 60 books during his career, and to date, they have sold nearly 500 million copies.
Akira Toriyama
Number of Copies Sold: Up to 438 million
Akira Toriyama was a highly influential manga artist and character designer responsible for creating best-selling series like Dr. Slump and Dragon Ball Z. During his illustrious career, Toriyama almost single-handedly boosted the global popularity of manga in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with his smash hit Dragon Ball Z. Unfortunately, Akira Toriyama passed away in 2024 at the age of just 68, but his works remain as popular as ever and to date have sold nearly 438 million copies worldwide.
Leo Tolstoy
Number of Copies Sold: Up to 413 million
Russian author, Leo Tolstoy, is considered by many as one of the greatest and most influential authors to have ever lived. Tolstoy started his career as an author in his twenties with his semi-autobiographical trilogy, Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth, as well as Sevastopol Sketches, which he based on his experience of the Crimean War. In later life, Tolstoy went on to write War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1878), two novels that are often cited as the two of the greatest novels ever written. To date, it’s believed that up to 413 million copies of Leo Tolstoy’s work have been sold worldwide.
Corín Tellado
Number of Copies Sold: Up to 400 million
Corín Tellado has been featured both in the Guinness Book of World Records for selling the largest number of books written in Spanish ever, and by UNESCO, who declared her the most-read Spanish author after Miguel de Cervantes. Famed for her simple yet unique romantic novels Tellado quickly made a name for herself in Spain and various other Spanish-speaking countries around the world. By the time of her death in 2009, Tellado had published more than 4,000 titles.
Dean Koontz
Number of Copies Sold: Up to 460 million
American author Dean Koontz is known for his diverse collection of suspense thriller novels that have captivated audiences all over the world. Koontz has the unique ability to incorporate a whole host of genres into his writing including fantasy, horror, sci-fi, and even satire, giving his classic suspense thriller novels a universal appeal. To date Koontz has sold around 460 million copies of his work, making him one of the best-selling authors alive.
R.L. Stine
Number of Copies Sold: Up to 410 million
Author of the popular children’s horror series Goosebumps, R.L. Stine has an impressive track record when it comes to copies sold, selling over 400 million to date. Stine found huge success with both his teenage horror series Fear Street and his children’s horror series Goosebumps, both of which have seen film and TV adaptations over the years.
James Patterson
Number of Copies Sold: Up to 400 million
Born in 1947, James Patterson graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. and an M.A. in English before embarking on a successful career in advertising. Although Patterson published a few books during his time working in advertising, it wasn't until after he retired that his career as an author really took off. Patterson has since become one of the wealthiest authors alive, topping Forbes’s list of the highest-paid authors three years in a row. By today's estimations, it's believed that just under 400 million copies of Patterson’s thriller books have been sold worldwide.
Horatio Alger
Number of Copies Sold: Up to 400 million
Horatio Alger was an advocate of the rags-to-riches plot line, which he used extensively in his works. Focusing mainly on young boys who came from nothing and worked their way up to respectable social stations, Alger wrote around 135 novels and poems that were published all over the world and inspired millions with their optimistic messaging. Since the publication of his first poem in 1849, it's estimated that around 400 million copies of Alger’s writings have been sold.
Nora Roberts
Number of Copies Sold: Up to 400 million
Nora Roberts is a world-renowned romance author with over 225 published novels to her name. As well as her popular romance novels, Roberts also writes police procedurals - a genre of detective novels that focus heavily on the investigation process and procedure. Despite facing some minor controversy around the inappropriateness of her books, Nora Roberts is well-deserving of a place on any list of best-selling authors after racking up an impressive 400 million sales over the last 45 years.
Stephen King
Number of Copies Sold: Up to 400 million
Stephen King is one of the most, if not THE most influential horror-thriller writer alive today, producing multiple groundbreaking titles including It, The Shining, and Pet Sematary. In total, Stephen King has written and published 65 novels, as well as over 200 short stories and his works have been adapted into film and/or TV on at least 80 separate occasions.
Alexander Pushkin
Number of Copies Sold: Up to 357 million
Born in Russia in 1799, Alexander Pushkin holds the reputation as Russia’s greatest poet. Pushkin spent his life writing about what believed in, even to the extent of being exiled by the emperor himself. Unfortunately, the great poet lost his life in his late thirties after sustaining a fatal wound during a duel with his wife’s supposed affair partner. Although the number of copies sold is not exact, it is believed that over 350 million copies of Pushkin’s works have been sold worldwide.
Paulo Coelho
Number of Copies Sold: Up to 350 million
Well-known as the author of The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho is a Brazilian novelist, born and raised in Rio de Janeiro. Coelho had a rather rough childhood, which continued through his teenage years and into adulthood, so, to escape the life he had found himself in he left Brazil and embarked on an expedition of discovery. It was on this trip that he found the inspiration for the book series that would later become one of the world’s best-selling collections. It’s estimated that since the publication of his first book, The Pilgrimage, Coelho has sold nearly 350 million copies worldwide.
Jirō Akagawa
Number of Copies Sold: Up to 300 million
Prolific Japanese novelist Jirō Akagawa has released multiple best sellers over his thirty-year career, some of the most notable titles include The Incident in the Bedroom Suburb, Voice from Heaven, and his Calico Cat Holmes series. Akagawa has written more than 560 individual novels, so it’s no surprise that he is one of the best-selling authors of all time, with nearly 330 million sales in total.
Jeffrey Archer
Number of Copies Sold: Up to 330 million
Jeffrey Archer is one of the world's most popular thriller, and drama writers, perhaps best known for the novel Kane and Abel, which remains to be one of the best-selling novels ever written. After stepping down as a politician, Archer has had a very successful career as an author, publishing multiple best-sellers and racking a total of nearly 330 million sales in more than 30 languages.
So, that brings our list of the best-selling authors of all time to a close. There were some pretty big names on this list, and maybe some that you weren’t expecting to see. If you want to see the next 25 best-selling authors of all time, follow us on Instagram and drop a like so we can bring you the content you are waiting for!
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