The 10 Best-Selling Women Authors of All-Time
For Women’s History Month, we wanted to highlight the best-selling women authors of all time. It’s hard not to constantly reference their work or talk about their incredible achievements because they have cemented themselves in the pop culture zeitgeist.
The women listed below have broken Romance, Supernatural and Mystery Thriller’s genre barriers. They have all created incredible worlds for readers to get lost in and have become popular over time. Whether they have one trilogy under their belt or more, their writing has introduced readers to new perspectives and brilliant female characters.
Here are the women authors we chose to highlight for Women’s History Month! Come and join us in the discord to discuss all their wonderful novels.
Agatha Christie
Born in Torquay in 1890, Agatha Christie became, and remains, the best-selling novelist of all time.
She is best known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, as well as the world’s longest-running play – The Mousetrap. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and a billion in translation.
Barbara Cartland
Dame Barbara Cartland was one of the most successful and well-known of all British romance novelists and was undoubtedly the most prolific, writing 723 books in her long lifetime of which 675 are romantic novels and include 160 brand new titles that are currently being published as the Barbara Cartland Pink Collection.
She wrote across a wide variety of genres, but is of course most closely associated with romance, and with her stories of chaste heroines, dashing heroes and everyone finally living happily ever after. Barbara was a colourful character in many senses of the word and was as well known for her controversial and witty interviews and absorbingly exciting life story as she was for her bright pink clothes and extravagant appearance.
To read Barbara Cartland’s life story is to be impressed that someone could fit so much into only one life. As well as writing a staggering number of books, she was also involved with great advances in many diverse fields from aviation to alternative medicine and helped many groups who she perceived as being unfairly treated, from midwives in poor working conditions to Romany gypsy children who wanted to be allowed to attend school.
She was fascinatingly contradictory in her interviews and novels, Barbara often extolled the virtues of traditional relationships between men and women and falling in love, but hers is the story of a driven, independent-minded woman who was unafraid to turn her hand to anything which interested her and right wrongs Barbara Cartland is synonymous with traditional romantic fiction, but her life story is perhaps just as engrossing as her fiction
Danielle Steel
Danielle Steel has sold 1 billion copies of her books internationally, and every one of her books is a bestseller. She is published in 69 countries and 43 languages.
Steel’s latest novel is Upside Down. Other recent bestsellers include The Ball at Versailles, Second Act, Happiness, Palazzo, Worthy Opponents, Without a Trace, The Whittiers, The High Notes, The Challenge, Suspects, and Beautiful, all of which have leapt to the top of the New York Times bestseller list, the Wall Street Journal list, and comparable best seller lists around the world.
Steel has written more than 210 books, 182 of which are novels; 18 children’s books, including Pretty Minnie in Hollywood and Pretty Minnie in Paris about her white long-hair teacup Chihuahua; four works of nonfiction, including His Bright Light: The Story of Nick Traina, A Gift of Hope: Helping the Homeless, and Pure Joy: The Dogs We Love; a book of poetry; and she has written the lyrics for a music album.
She also founded and runs two foundations, one named in honor of her late son, The Nick Traina Foundation, which finances organizations involved in mental illness, child abuse, and suicide prevention. The second foundation was established to assist the homeless. In 2002 Steel was decorated by the French government as an “Officier” of the distinguished Order of Arts and Letters and in 2014 she was decorated as a Chevalier (Knight) of the Order of the Legion d’Honneur in Paris. She lives in Paris and San Francisco and is the mother of nine children.
Ann M. Martin
Ann M. Martin is the award winning author behind landmark book series such as The Baby-Sitters Club, Main Street, and Missy Piggle-Wiggle. Among her acclaimed standalone novels are A Dog’s Life, Belle Teal, Here Today, and A Corner of the Universe.
Ann grew up in Princeton, New Jersey. Her mother, who would go on to inspire much of her writing, was a pre-school teacher. Ann’s father was a professional cartoonist for a number of publications, including The New Yorker.
Ann currently lives in upstate New York where she continues to write, and read, new books.
“I think reading is a gift. It was a gift that was given to me as a child by many people, and now as an adult and a writer, I’m trying to give a little of it back to others. It’s one of the greatest pleasures I know”
– Ann M. Martin
Jackie Collins
The iconic author has been called a “raunchy moralist” by the late director Louis Malle and “Hollywood’s own Marcel Proust” by Vanity Fair magazine.
With over half a billion copies of her books sold in more than forty countries, and with thirty one New York Times bestsellers to her credit, she is one of the world’s top-selling novelists.
From glamorous Beverly Hills bedrooms to Hollywood movie studios; from glittering rock concerts in London to the yachts of Russian billionaires, Jackie Collins chronicles the scandalous lives of the rich, famous and infamous from the inside looking out.
Born in in London, England, her first novel, “The World is Full of Married Men” was published in 1968 and established Collins as an author who dared to step where no other female writer had gone before. She followed it year after year with one successful title after another, including “The Stud” and “The Bitch,” both adapted into films in the 1970s starring her actress sister, Joan Collins.
Jackie was awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) by the Queen of England in 2013 for her services to literature and charity. When accepting the honor she said to the Queen ‘Not bad for a school drop-out’ – a revelation capturing her belief that both passion and determination can lead to big dreams coming true!
NORA ROBERTS
Nora Roberts was born in Silver Spring, Maryland, the youngest of five children. After a school career that included some time in Catholic school and the discipline of nuns, she married young and settled in Keedysville, Maryland.
She worked briefly as a legal secretary. “I could type fast but couldn’t spell, I was the worst legal secretary ever,” she says now. After her sons were born she stayed home and tried every craft that came along. A blizzard in February 1979 forced her hand to try another creative outlet. She was snowed in with a three and six-year-old with no kindergarten respite in sight and a dwindling supply of chocolate.
Born into a family of readers, Nora had never known a time that she wasn’t reading or making up stories. During the now-famous blizzard, she pulled out a pencil and notebook and began to write down one of those stories. It was there that a career was born. Several manuscripts and rejections later, her first book, Irish Thoroughbred, was published by Silhouette in 1981.
Anne Rice
Anne Rice was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. She holds a Master of Arts Degree in English and Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, as well as a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science. Anne has spent more of her life in California than in New Orleans, but New Orleans is her true home and provides the back drop for many of her famous novels. The French Quarter provided the setting for her first novel, Interview with the Vampire. And her ante-bellum house in the Garden District was the fictional home of her imaginary Mayfair Witches.
She is the author of over 30 novels. Her first novel, Interview with the Vampire, was published in 1976 and has gone on to become one of the best-selling novels of all time. She continued her saga of the Vampire Lestat in a series of books, collectively known as The Vampire Chronicles, which have had both great mainstream and cult followings. Interview with the Vampire was made into a motion picture in 1994, directed by Neil Jordan, and starring Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Kirsten Dunst and Antonio Banderas. Anne's novel, Feast of All Saints about the free people of colour of ante-bellum New Orleans became a Showtime mini-series in 2001 and is available now on DVD. The script for the mini-series by John Wilder was a faithful adaptation of the novel. Anne Rice is also the author of other novels, including The Witching Hour, Servant of the Bones, Merrick, Blackwood Farm, Blood Canticle, Violin, and Cry to Heaven.
EL JAMES
EL James is a former TV executive, wife and mother of two based in the leafy suburbs of West London. She has been writing romantic fiction since 2009, and in 2012 her career took an extraordinary turn when her Fifty Shades Trilogy became a worldwide bestseller and subsequently a series of blockbuster movies.
From an early age, she had dreamed of writing stories that readers would fall in love with — and now those dreams have come true, thanks to her fans.
Stephenie Meyer
Best known for her Twilight series, Stephenie Meyer’s four-book collection has sold over 100 million copies globally in over 50 countries, with translations in 37 different languages. Meyer was the highest-selling author of 2008 and 2009 in the United States, having sold over 29 million books in 2008, and 26.5 million books in 2009. In 2008, Meyer also released The Host, which debuted at #1 on The New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. Additionally, USA Today declared Meyer “Author of the Year,” citing that she had done something that no one else had in the 15 years of the USA Today bestselling book list– she swept the top four slots in 2008. Meyer also accomplished this feat in 2009, when The Twilight Saga once again dominated the top of the bestseller list. All together, her books have spent over 303 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List.
Stephenie Meyer graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in English Literature. She lives in Arizona with her husband and sons.
JUDITH Krantz
Judith Krantz was an American author of blockbuster romance novels including her first novel Scruples followed by Princess Daisy. Krantz's books have been translated into 52 languages and sold more than 85 million copies worldwide. Seven have been adapted as TV miniseries, with her late husband, Steve Krantz.
Have you read any of the books listed above? If you have, let us know which one is your favourite! If you have any recommendations drop them in the comments below.
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