The problem with hits vs sales is that for every book sale, you can pretty much assume at least one reader - and, if the book's any good, 2-4, from people lending books and reselling and such. (and that's not mentioning library lending, which goes entirely unrecorded; and piracy these days.) While as with hits, I assume that there's maybe one actual reader for every 3-5 hits, considering all the people who start and don't finish reading, come back to a story multiple times, come to bookmark it and then forget it, etc.
The super-popular fic (like the big hits in megafandoms like HP & SGA) probably have gotten more readers than some novels, but overall I think novels still have a wider audience.
(But fanfic short stories I think get wider readership than most short stories save those written by popular authors, so it's a trade-off...)
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winterfish
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Date: 2010-05-14 11:30 pm (UTC)The super-popular fic (like the big hits in megafandoms like HP & SGA) probably have gotten more readers than some novels, but overall I think novels still have a wider audience.
(But fanfic short stories I think get wider readership than most short stories save those written by popular authors, so it's a trade-off...)