I wanted a quote for my website from somebody familiar, to let newcomers know they’d come to the right place. Who is the biggest name in fantasy, I wondered? I know who I think have written the best fantasy books, but what does everybody else think? Who would know?
Google! I took some prominent fantasy authors and plugged them into Google’s excellent Keyword Tool, which reveals the global monthly searches on their names (and close variations). This is an unscientific method which might not correlate to book sales, but as an indicator of worldwide interest it’s great! These are the authors that people are seeking out on Google (and the approximate number of monthly searches):
Top 10 Fantasy Authors
1. Stephenie Meyer (1,100,000)
2. JK Rowling (547,000)
3. JRR Tolkien (340,000)
4. Charlaine Harris (200,500)
5. CS Lewis (200,000)
6. Christopher Paolini (195,500)
7. Terry Pratchett (110,000)
8. Neil Gaiman (90,500)
9. Robert Jordan (50,000)
10. George RR Martin (49,500)
Soon to be Top 10 Fantasy Authors?
11. Terry Goodkind (40,500)
12. Philip Pullman (27,500)
13. Terry Brooks (22,200)
14. Robin Hobb (18,100)
14. Trudi Canavan (18,100)
14. Brandon Sanderson (18,100)
14. Patrick Rothfuss (18,100)
How surprising. Falling in love with vampires is more appealing than going to magic school or getting lost in mythology. I suspect that the film and TV industry has a lot to do with the Top 6, since each one has a major production, and George RR Martin is poised to shoot up the list with the upcoming HBO series for Game of Thrones. It’s great to see that even twenty years after their collaboration on Good Omens, Pratchett and Gaiman are side by side, but the Top 5 Fantasy Authors take about 3/4 of all traffic! Some of my favourite favourite authors, like Stephen Donaldson, aren’t even on that page! But then neither is Greg Hamerton … it’s a travesty 
So whom should I choose as the voice of authority on my site? Well, my writing is an evolution from classic fantasy, influenced more by Tolkien, Robert Jordan, and Robin Hobb. So to help new readers quickly identify what kind of writing they could expect, I mentioned these names in the first line of my home page, but I still needed a memorable quote. I nipped onto Goodreads’ Quotes database. And there it was, the perfect quote:
“In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.” Terry Pratchett
If Google has a sense of humour, Sir Terry would be ranked as #1.
