I find it fascinating that no living science fiction writer is even in the conversation. During the 80s, when sf first became true bestsellers, the Asimov/Heinlein/Clarke contingent were far in the lead. (Tolkien was dead by then.) Now who would be on top? John Scalzi and Robert Sawyer may be multi-millionaires but nowhere near Martin. William Gibson? Orson Scott Card?
I’m defining science fiction in that old-fashioned way. No fantasy, no horror, no vampires, no zombies, no superheroes. Some YA authors might make the list, the way J. R. Rowling probably out-earns King and Martin combined. Maybe Suzanne Collins.
I’m betting that no one who hasn’t had their books turned into hit television or movies can hope to join those ranks.
There’s definitely a lot of crossover between thrillers, horror, and science fiction. But for pure SF, James SA Corey and John Scalzi are probably the leaders. If you’re talking about making money for their writing, not for TV/movie deals, Scalzi probably wins out.
Does “makes the most money” refer to how much they’re currently pulling in, or to how much they’ve earned from their writing over the entire course of their career?
That’s a good question. I was thinking of active writers pulling in the big bucks today. Otherwise Robert Silverberg’s millions of books probably puts him on top over his career.
Scalzi’s haul is impressive, of course, for any ordinary writer, but 13 books for $3.4 million is only $261,538 per book. That’s couch cushion change for bestsellers.
Samuel R. Delany is still making a ton of money from Dhalgren. It was, at one point, his publisher’s best selling novel of any nature, selling over a million copies. In addition, nearly all of his earlier novels are still in print.
It was a $1.95 paperback, meaning that Delany may have made a quarter off each copy. That $250,000 was big bucks in 1975 but eclipsed by the hardback bestsellers in the 1980s. None of Delany’s other books came close to making that kind of money.
That’s the problem with the older writers. They made big money for their day, but today’s rewards are gigantic in comparison.
No longer with us but I assumed Michael Crichton was making big money based on movie adaptations. No idea how lucrative those were for him, he didn’t get the chance for big cable/streaming mega-buck deals.
The Expanse includes “vomit zombies” - but I know what you mean.
Niven and Pournelle pioneered crossover SF/thrillers with Lucifer’s Hammer, and Niven has a pretty long backlist - Ringworld is still in print (Niven also started off rich, which is the best way to be a rich writer).
Didn’t know that. So his grandpa was a real part of American Scandalous History. His isn’t the kind of writing that would lend itself easily to movie making. I guess he could leverage his regard in the SF world just to plaster his name on things to make money if he wanted to. Maybe he doesn’t want to.
I started looking for the net worth of Peter F. Hamilton and found an article written by John Scalzi which has comments from both Peter F. Hamilton and Jay Lake.
Which then bring the question of what means science fiction writer? GRRM is making a lot of money by developing ideas, but he’s not being paid by the book.
If each author would be getting paid the same amount per word, then Peter F. Hamilton might be ahead, even if he didn’t sell as many copies as others. His books (tomes?) are huge.
And he just made some more money, because my husband just bought two more books.
What about Larry Niven? Most of his career is behind him, but I’m sure many of his books are still being sold in many different languages.
Yeah. Ironic that he and Heinlein were friends - Heinlein in his early life campaigned for Upton Sinclair who wrote a fictionalized expose of Niven’s ancestor (and that book became a movie There Will Be Blood - Wikipedia).