Contemporary Science Fiction vs Contemporary Fantasy

Over the last couple of years I've gotten the impression science fiction isn't what it used to be in a number of different ways. This may simply be a reflection of my gradual disenchantment with the genre over the last few years. But I think there is something more in it. One aspect of this feeling is that, at least in traditional publishing, SF is both changing focus and slowly fading. I can't speak to the changes, as I've read only a few modern SF books, but it seems that many of the SF orientated YouTube channels and blogs only cover old, "classic" books from 20, 30, 40 plus years ago. It seems like fantasy is now the in read for fans of speculative fiction. Can I verify this? 

Unless you're a publishing insider and have access to a lot more data than I do, this feeling can not be tested. At least directly. But I think I've found a way to compare the sales of the two genre, relative to each other.

So how do we compare SF sales to fantasy without knowing the figures?

We start with the fantasy author, Mark Lawrence, who is something of a numbers guy. He has asserted that there is a direct correlation between the number of ratings on Goodreads and the sales of a traditionally published book. He says that if you take the number of ratings for a recently published book on Goodreads, multiply it by 4, it will give you a ballpark figure as to the number of books sold. His blog post  about that is here. He bases this relationship on the data he has from his books and other authors. People dispute this number, and it certainly doesn't seem to work for indie published books... At least from my experience. But I think the relationship between ratings and sales numbers is strong enough that one can compare ratings numbers to ratings numbers and get a useful comparison of relative sales. Good enough for our purposes, anyway.

Next, what books to we compare? Hundreds of books are published every year in SF and fantasy. How do you find and select books to compare? As it turns out, the Goodreads has just released its list of the Best Books of 2023. It features 20 books in both the SF and fantasy categories. Goodreads says that the books were selected by analyzing statistics from the millions of books added, rated, and reviewed on Goodreads and published in the last 12 months. The sample includes books from all types of publishers; traditional and indie publishers. This seems to me as valid a sample as any. For my analysis I used SF, fantasy, and romantasy (a mash-up of romance and fantasy). I did not use YA fantasy for my comparison, since I hadn't see that category until after I had done the table below. However, there is no YA SF category to compare it to, which, in itself, I think is telling.

On 16 November 2023W I sampled each of the 20 books in the three categories; SF, fantasy and romantasy. I recorded the number of ratings each book had at that time, plus the number of months each book had been on the market. I also noted the sex of the author, and the size of the publisher. I added up the total number of rating for all 20 books in each category. I then added up the collective number of months the books had been on the market. To get one figure to compare each category to, I divided the total number of ratings by the total number of months the books had been in the market to arrive at an average number of ratings-per month for the entire category. In my model, this number of ratings per month represents the relative sales of each of the three categories, which then can then be compared. 

So what do the numbers say? 

Romantasy was the most popular category, at least in this sample. First, all the books were written by female authors. It is romance, after all. One author, Jennifer L Armentrout, had three of the 20 books on this list. She must be both a popular and prolific author. One book however, Fourth Wing, by Rebecca Yarros, dominates this category in ratings, and presumably sales, with 719,631 ratings at the time I sampled it. (The number of ratings of all the books will have gone up by the time I release this post.) Large, Big 5 Publishers, released 4 of the books, with 3 coming from what I think are medium sized publishers. The rest were either indie published or came from small presses, making their ratings numbers all the more impressive for that.

Fantasy was dominated by books released by large publishers; 14 out of the 20, with 6 coming from medium sized publishers. No indie published books made this list. Women authors once again dominated, authoring 15 of the 20 selections. Hell Bent, by Leigh Bardugo, had the most ratings, 88,513, followed by Brandon Sanderson's Tress of the Emerald Sea, with 74,180 ratings. Martha Wells had a book in this category as well as one in SF.

Now, looking at SF, the book with the most ratings in SF was In the Lives of Puppets, by T J Klune, with 40,266 ratings. Martha Well's entry, System Collapse, a MurderBot story had just been released in Nov, so the ratings for that book only clocked in at 1,857. It is probably significantly higher now. This category featured 12 male and 8 female authors. As for publishers, 10 of the books in this category were published by large publishers, 2, medium, and 8 appear to have been indie or small press releases. I should also point out that the SF list includes books from five well known SF writers; Martha Wells, John Scalzi, Pierce Brown, Ann Leckie, and Adrian Tchikovsky, so that I don't think SF's best selling authors are under represented on the list. They may well be over represented.

Now on to the comparison;

Romantasy came in with an average of 9,940 ratings per month for the field of 20 books, largely thanks to Fourth Wing.

Fantasy clocked in at 3,815 ratings per month average for the 20 books.

Science Fiction trailed the pack with a 1,496 ratings per month average for their 20 books.

The combined categories had 43 female vs 17 male authors. 72% vs 28% US readership split is 64.3% female vs 35.7%, male, so the author to readership ratio is fairly reflective of the audience.

Using these figures, it would seem that fantasy outsells SF by more than 2 1/2 to 1, 72% vs 28%. For comparison, years ago when the Data Guy broke out Amazon sales numbers, I think the fantasy to SF ratio was more like 3 to 2  66% vs 33%. Fantasy was outselling SF even then. But using this data it would seem that since then fantasy's lead has only grown.

However, if we roll romantasy's average monthly ratings into the general fantasy, it is fantasy, after all, and divide that total by 2 to get an average of the combined fantasy categories, we get a monthly average of 6,877 ratings per month. Using this figure, fantasy outsells SF by 4 to 1, 82% vs 18% And remember, we're not counting YA fantasy in these comparisons, which I am quite certain, judging from my granddaughter, would make the sales ratio even more daunting.

You can discount these results, as you please. One might argue that SF readers are reading older SF titles, if SF booktube is any guide, not the 2023 titles, which this sample only includes, and thus this comparison may underestimate SF readership. Or that the total number of books published in each category are probably not equal, as they are in this sample, which could distort the result. No doubt true, but that likely works in fantasy's favor, as I am certain that publishers are publishing more fantasy than SF these days. And since we find indie published books in this sample, I think we have a pretty well rounded sample. While fantasy, has never entirely absent from speculative fiction, it played a minor role until the early 1970's when Lord of the Rings became popular. Clearly it has come a long way in the last 50 years.

Fashion rules the world. Everything comes into fashion, and then fades away, before returning again in a different guise. SF may rise again, or it may evolve and change into something unrecognizable. But for now, at least in books, SF seems to be falling out of favor with readers of the fantastic.

The data I used;

Title	Author	M/F	Ratings Numbers	Pub.	Months on Market
Romantasy
The Jasad Heir	Sara Jasjem	F	6,592	Lg	5
The Foxglove King	Hannah Witten	F	12,254	Lg	8.5
A Dawn of Onyx	Kate Golden	F	14,017	IP/sm	11
Assistant to the Villain	Hanna Nicole Maehrer	F	36,173	IP/sm	2.5
The Ashes and the Star Cursed King	Carissa Broadbent	F	101,042	IP	7
Zodiac Academy, Sorrow and Starlight	Caroline Peckham Susanne Valenti	F/F	34,123	Med	11.5
The Hurricane Wars	Thea Guanzon	F	4,383	Lg	1.5
A Soul of Ash and Blood	Jennifer L Armentrount	F	41,379	IP/sm	4
The Hanging City	Charlie N Holmberg	F	7,738	Med	3.5
The Coven	Harper L Woods	F	22,757	Med	8
A Fire in the Flesh	Jennifer L Armentrout	F	13,640	IP/sm	.5
Bewitched	Laura Thalassa	F	6,580	IP/sm	7
Slaying the Vampire Conqueror	Carissa Broadben	F	10,602	IP/sm	6.5
Rule of the Aurora King	Nisha J Tuli	F	13,587	IP/sm	7.5
A Game of Gods	Scarlett St Clair	F	6,237	IP/sm	3.5
Fall of Ruin and Wrath	Jennifer L Armentrount	F	18,983	IP/sm	2
Fourth Wing	Rebecca Yarros	F	719,631	IP/sm	6.5
Throne of the Fallen	Kerri Maniscalco	F	7,061	Lg	1.5
Queen of Thieves and Chao	K A Tucker	F	2,247	IP/sm	2
A Court This Cruel and Lovely	Stacia Stark	F	9,824	IP/sm	8
	Average Ratings per month per book: 9,940	21F	1,063,630 total ratings	4 Lg 3Med 13 IP/ Sm	107 months total
Fantasy
A Day of Fallen Night	Samantha Shannon	F	20,315	Med	8.5
Ink Blood Sister Scribe	Emma Torz	F	20,239	Lg	5.5
The Fragile Threads of Power	V E Schwab	F	7,940	Lg	2
Atalanta	Jennifer Saint	F	9.830	Med	8
The Adventures of Amina AL-Siraf	Sharron Chakraborty	F	26,335	Lg	8.5
The Unmaking of June Farrow	Adrienne Young	F	10,929	Med	1
Sword Catcher	Cassandra Clare	F	4,713	Lg	1
Victory City	Salman Rushdie	M	8,201	Lg	10
Bookshops and Bonedust	Travis Baldree	M	4,748	Med	.5
Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries	Heather Fawcett	F	40,942	Lg	11
Stone Blind	Natalie Haynes	F	30,974	Lg	2
VenCo Cove	Cherie Dimaline	F	6,508	Lg	10.5
The Book that Wouldn’t Burn	Mark Lawrence	M	8,096	Lg	6.5
Clytemnestra	Constanza Casat	F	12,532	Lg	6.5
Tress of the Emerald Sea	Brandon Sanderson	M	74,180	Lg	7.5
The Last Tale of the Flower Bride	Roshani Chokshi	F	15,529	Lg	0
Witch King	Martha Wells	F	10,507	Lg	5.5
Hell Bent	Leigh Bardugo	F	88,513	Med	11
Starling House	Alix E Harrow	F	22,534	Lg	1.5
The Will of the Many	James Islingto	M	7,591	Med	6
	Average Ratings per month per book: 3,815 Combining Romancy with fantasy Aver. Rating per month per book: 6,877	15F 5M	431 156 toal ratings	14 Lg 6 Med	113 months total
Science Fiction
The Ferryman	Justin Cronin	M	20,161	Lg	7
System Collapse	Martha Wells	F	1,857	Lg	0
I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself	Marsha Crane	F	3,146	IP/sm	11
Deluge	Stephen Markley	M	2,347	Lg	10
Starter Villain	John Scalzi	M	12,481	Lg	2
Translation State	Ann Leckie	F	5,547	Lg	5
Light Bringer	Pierce Brown	M	20,694	Med	3
In the Lives of Puppets	T J Klune	M	40,266	Lg	7
Some Desperate Glory	Emily Tesh	F	4,648	Lg	7
Ascension	Nicholas Binge	M	5,865	IP/sm	7
The Light Pirate	Lilly Brooks-Dalton	F	21,684	IP/sm	11
The Great Transition	Nick Fuller Googin	M	1,042	IP/sm	4
The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport	Samit Basu	M	236	Lg	2
The Marriage Act	John Marrs	M	11,074	IP/sm	11
Bridge	Lauren Beukes	F	811	IP/sm	3
The Future	Naomi Aldersman	M	870	Lg	1
Chain-Gang All-Star	Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah	M	15,061	Sm	6
Children of Memory	Adrian Tchikovsky	M	12,942	Lg	10
The Deep Sky	Yume Kitasei	F	3,144	Med	5
Land of Milk and Honey	C Pam Zhang	F	3,168	IP/sm	3
	Average Ratings per month per book: 1,496	12 M 8 F	187,044 total ratings	10 Lg 2 Med 8 IP/sm	125 moths total