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Popularity in SFF redux
Aug. 31st, 2015 09:34 pmI read Eric Flint's latest post on popularity, and something kept bothering me, until I realized that he had got one thing subtly wrong: He is measuring the popularity of authors, not of works.
Sure, David Weber is more popular, by measurement of shelf space, than Lois McMaster Bujold: but that's partly because Weber publishes two to three books a year and Bujold one (fewer recently, as she hasn't been entirely well, I understand). More to the point: how do War of Honor and Paladin of Souls (published at about the same time, the latter winning both a Hugo and a Nebula) compare in total sales? How does Shadow of Freedom stack up against Ancillary Justice (both 2013 novels)?
Flint's measure regards a combined metric of popular and prolific. (Martin and Tolkien are the exceptions: small sets of volumes with massive popularity, but a general estimate of high quality.) The measure of popularity appropriate for the Hugos is not by the author but by the work, and I have not seen any evidence that the normal Hugo winner of the past few years is necessarily significantly less popular than an average work by the "popular" authors.
Perhaps I should draw back from that claim a bit: the figures I looked at before suggest that Hugo winners are not necessarily among the very most popular SFF novels of their years, and that the disparity probably does reflect a judgement by Hugo voters tilted towards best rather than most popular. But I also think that it is generally true that Hugo winners and nominees are among the most popular SFF works of their years.
Sure, David Weber is more popular, by measurement of shelf space, than Lois McMaster Bujold: but that's partly because Weber publishes two to three books a year and Bujold one (fewer recently, as she hasn't been entirely well, I understand). More to the point: how do War of Honor and Paladin of Souls (published at about the same time, the latter winning both a Hugo and a Nebula) compare in total sales? How does Shadow of Freedom stack up against Ancillary Justice (both 2013 novels)?
Flint's measure regards a combined metric of popular and prolific. (Martin and Tolkien are the exceptions: small sets of volumes with massive popularity, but a general estimate of high quality.) The measure of popularity appropriate for the Hugos is not by the author but by the work, and I have not seen any evidence that the normal Hugo winner of the past few years is necessarily significantly less popular than an average work by the "popular" authors.
Perhaps I should draw back from that claim a bit: the figures I looked at before suggest that Hugo winners are not necessarily among the very most popular SFF novels of their years, and that the disparity probably does reflect a judgement by Hugo voters tilted towards best rather than most popular. But I also think that it is generally true that Hugo winners and nominees are among the most popular SFF works of their years.
