Indie Author's Survey results.

[iwatchus]

I just ran across this (to be more precise, my wife just passed it to me).

2025 Indie Author Survey Results

I found several of the items interesting. I imagine some others who are publishing curious might find them so as well. Certainly curious to hear feedback from those here who do publish about their agreements and disagreements with the poll. It is self reported information and does not seem to include erotica as a category.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Interesting numbers. Romance is the mom-son of mainstream, it seems. Just a couple of days ago, I argued that Romantasy isn't recognized as a full genre yet, and this article seems to support that. I wonder how much of that fantasy percentage goes to romantasy.

 

[TheLobster]

I wonder how much of that fantasy percentage goes to romantasy

My hunch is that SF and fantasy should have roughly similar share in popularity right now, because we haven’t had any cultural touchstone movie in either genre for a while (last one was Dune, and its impact should have waned by now).

If that’s true, then you can subtract SF percentage from fantasy and you’ll get the hidden stat of smut masquerading romantasy.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

My hunch is that SF and fantasy should have roughly similar share in popularity right now, because we haven’t had any cultural touchstone movie in either genre for a while (last one was Dune, and its impact should have waned by now).

If that’s true, then you can subtract SF percentage from fantasy and you’ll get the hidden stat of smut masquerading romantasy.

If your logic holds, that's almost half of the fantasy. That's grim.

 

[YmaOHyd]

If your logic holds, that's almost half of the fantasy. That's grim. https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1fae4.png

The Amazon Kindle best-seller list for science fiction and fantasy is:

1. Romantasy
2. Romantasy
3. Romantasy
4. Cozy fantasy
5. Romantasy
6. Romantasy
7. LitRPG/harem fantasy
8. Dark fantasy
9. Dystopian sci-fi
10. Cozy fantasy
11. LitRPG
12. Romantasy
13. Cozy fantasy
14. Romantasy
15. Romantasy
16. Romantasy
17. Hard science fiction
18. Romantasy
19. Cozy fantasy
20. Romantasy

The Amazon dead-tree best-seller list for science fiction and fantasy has many of the same books:

1. Romantasy
2. Hard sci-fi
3. LitRPG
4. Romantasy
5. Romantasy
6. Romantasy
7. Romantasy
8. Romantasy
9. Romantasy
10. LitRPG
11. Romantasy
12. Fantasy
13. LitRPG
14. Romantasy/paranormal romance
15. Fantasy
16. Fantasy
17. LitRPG
18. Romantasy
19. LitRPG
20. LitRPG

The only not-romantasy/cozy/LitRPG book, I'm pretty sure, that shows up on both lists is Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, which is about to be a Ryan Gosling movie. That's the hard sci-fi in the two lists. I've bolded the non-romantasy/cozy/LitRPG stuff to make it stick out just a bit more.

 

[PennameWombat]

The Amazon Kindle best-seller list for science fiction and fantasy is:

• Romantasy
• ...
• LitRPG

The only not-romantasy/cozy/LitRPG book, I'm pretty sure, that shows up on both lists is Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, which is about to be a Ryan Gosling movie. That's the hard sci-fi in the two lists. I've bolded the non-romantasy/cozy/LitRPG stuff to make it stick out just a bit more.

Just out of curiosity, if you noticed, is one of the LitRPG's "Dungeon Crawler Carl"? It's been all over Audible, since much of my leisure time non-erotica reading is now via audio, but anytime I've sampled LitRPG, the 'stats' part of it just drives me out.

But your lists also confirm for me that I'd never be a best-selling genre author, at least not in the current climate. And as I wasn't really a fan of "Project Hail Mary," even that one doesn't offer much hope to my aspirations .

 

[YmaOHyd]

Just out of curiosity, if you noticed, is one of the LitRPG's "Dungeon Crawler Carl"? It's been all over Audible, since much of my leisure time non-erotica reading is now via audio, but anytime I've sampled LitRPG, the 'stats' part of it just drives me out.

Yes; it's on both lists. It's the one listed on Kindle, and in dead-tree format the #3 entry is Dungeon Crawler Carl, and all the other LitRPGs are part of the DCC franchise.