The Harry Potter Series, The Alchemist and The Robert Langdon book series are among the titles that have generated millions in revenue per page, according to new research by magazine.co.uk.
Looking at revenue and copies sold, the magazine subscription site has analysed the best selling books from living authors to reveal just how much these words, read by so many around the world, have earned their writers.
Earning the most per page, Rowling’s 1997 debut hit Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone secures the top spot, generating an astonishing £4.2million per page – that’s £12,461 per word, followed by Paulo Coelho’s best seller The Alchemist at £3.98million per leaf and Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull a huge £2.49million per page. Rowling’s second and third Harry Potter books – Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban placed fourth and fifth, earning £2.4million and £1.6million respectively.
Rowling’s Harry Potter books were not the only full series to feature in the top 20; Dan Brown’s adventures of Robert Langdon proved popular, collectively selling 149,000,000 copies worldwide. The first in the series, The Da Vinci Code, secured £1.4million in revenue per page, while Angels & Demons and The Lost Symbol each earned £570,000 and £470,000 in revenue.
All three of E.L. James’s Fifty Shades trilogy secured a spot in the top 20 best-sellers with the debut novel generating £944,475 per page, while Fifty Shades Darker earned £625,244 in revenue per page and Fifty Shades Freed £513,270.
Stephenie Meyer’s ever-popular vampire-themed romance fantasy Twilight rounds off the top 20 best-selling books, generating approximately £269,700,000 in revenue from the 30 million copies sold – £696,899 per page, or £2,788 per word.
The full study can be found here: https://www.magazine.co.uk/the-hub/the-value-of-words
