Top Ten LDS Authors on LibraryThing

Here's what I think are the top ten (most copies on LibraryThing) LDS authors. Have I forgotten anyone?

1. Orson Scott Card (65150)
2. Stephenie Meyer (49059)
3. Anne Perry (11526)
4. Stephen R. Covey (8813)
5. Shannon Hale (4312)
6. Dave Wolverton (3125)
7. Joseph Smith (2777)
8. Richard Paul Evans (2723)
9. Brandon Sanderson (2374)
10. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (1251)

This is an interesting list - where did you go to figure it out? (Did you just scan through the top authors on LibraryThing?)

Most of these I guessed and checked, but the list of LDS authors at adherents.com helped me with a couple I didn't already have.

I need to change #10 to Wayne C. Booth, with 1535 copies. I think he was non-practicing in his later years, but one of his 2 funeral services was in the Alpine First Ward.

Once you get very far beyond the top 10, you start getting some authors mainly known only to Latter-day Saints, like Gerald Lund, with 1042 copies.

Very cool! You should change the names to touchstones so that people interested in these authors can find this list.

If only I could get those blasted touchstones to work!

BTW, I found another list of famous LDS fiction writers at http://www.mormontimes.com/arts_entertainment/news/?id=2062

None of the new names mentioned there make it into our LT top ten.

Another comment: As much as I like to root for the home team, I find it a little frightening that Card is about to pass Dickens, and that both Card and Meyer are ahead of Dostoevsky!

Here's an update:

1. Stephenie Meyer (148,452)
2. Orson Scott Card (121,463)
3. Tracy Hickman (47,999)
4. Christine Feehan (38,979)
5. Anne Perry (26,146)
6. Brandon Sanderson (21,713)
7. Stephen R. Covey (17,408)
8. Shannon Hale (12,694)
9. James Dashner (8,099)
10. Richard Paul Evans (7,759)

I'm not sure what's going on with Tracy Hickman: That huge number is what appears on his author page, but he doesn't show up in the list of LibraryThing's 1000 most popular authors, which contains everyone with more than 10,000 copies.

>7 cpg:

Virtually everything Tracy Hickman writes is co-authored with Margaret Weiss, and vice versa, but she's always listed as the first author, because that's just how they originally decided to go. The upshot of that is that here on LT, Tracy Hickman is almost always listed as an "other author" instead of as the primary author. Tim's been fussing around with some of the "other authors" statistics, so it looks Hickman's contributions are being counted in different ways, depending on the page.

E.g., as you pointed out, his author page list almost 50,000 works, but he doesn't show up in the top 1000 authors. However, Margaret Weiss does appear on that page at number 89, with almost 54,000 works, which seems about right, because that's comparable with Tracy Hickman's numbers on his author page. (To be honest, I'd guess that at least some of the remaining discrepancy is due to Hickman not being listed as a second author on some more obscure books.)

Quadrennial update:

LDS authors in LT's top 1000 (Official Zeitgeist lists only):

14. Stephenie Meyer (170,562)
17. Orson Scott Card (144,698)
166. Christine Feehan (48,481)
282. Brandon Sanderson (34,063)
288. Anne Perry (33,582)
563. Stephen R. Covey (20,820)
598. James Dashner (19,958)
652. Shannon Hale (18,469)

Books in LT's top 1000 that are by LDS authors:

15. Twilight (49,671)
22. New Moon (35,977)
30. Eclipse (32,992)
40. Ender's Game (30,099)
41. Breaking Dawn (29,969)
252. The Host (12,899)
282. Speaker for the Dead (12,060)
302. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (11,226)
442. Xenocide (8,992)
447. Ender's Shadow (8,951)
572. The Maze Runner (7,761)
742. Children of the Mind (6,791)
804. Go Ask Alice (6,419)
917. Matched (5,853)
932. Shadow of the Hegemon (5,803)

I am such a fan of Brandon Sanderson. I'm steadily working my way through all his books. I just finished Steelheart this year. Has anyone read Stephenie Meyer's latest, The Chemist? I'm kinda curious about that one.