Amazon Authorank: The most popular science fiction and fantasy writers

[PeteMC]

Interesting that the likes of Ray Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut still appear to be selling better than the likes of David Weber. Not entirely sure how believable that they alone amongst the deceased greats of SF should be in the top 20.

Well, it means they're selling better on Amazon but not necessarily overall. I doubt they are as easy to find in actual shops as someone like David Webber is, so the Amazon sales could be pretty much all of their sales. They certainly aren't all of Webber's, by a large margin.

 

[MWagner]

Interesting that the likes of Ray Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut still appear to be selling better than the likes of David Weber. Not entirely sure how believable that they alone amongst the deceased greats of SF should be in the top 20.

Bradbury and Vonnegut have popular appeal outside the genre. Both (especially Vonnegut) are highly-regarded authors of 'contemporary literature,' and are read by the same sorts of people who read Salinger, Tom Robbins, Cormac McCarthy, etc. I doubt anyone who isn't a dedicated SF fan has heard of Weber.

Also, I agree with Wruter that putting a book on a school reading syllabus has a massive impact on sales. I used to work in a used book store, and you could tell straight-away which books were in English courses because we had piles and piles of them.