Some of the books you’re about to see on this list of the best-selling book series of all time might surprise you a little bit…
Here are the 10 best-selling book series of all time.
Let’s take a look!
1. Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
No surprise here. Rowling’s iconic Harry Potter books have sold at least 500 million copies.
And if you looked at the individual titles in the series, they are among the highest-selling books of all time.
Photo Credit: Amazon
2. Goosebumps by R.L. Stine
Stine wrote 62 Goosebumps books from 1992 to 1997 and the spooky books geared toward kids have sold over 350 million copies all over the world.
3. Perry Mason by Erle Stanley Gardner
Gardner (1889-1970) wrote more than 80 Perry Mason books during his life and they have sold over 300 million copies.
Photo Credit: Amazon
4. Berenstain Bears by Stan and Jan Berenstain
Yes, like many other people, I used to think these books were called The BERNSTEIN Bears for some reason…
Jan and Stan Berenstain were married for 59 years and they wrote hundreds of books about the lovable family of bears that many of us grew up on. Those books have sold roughly 260 million copies.
The couple’s son Mike took over the franchise when his mother passed away in 2012.
5. Choose Your Own Adventure by multiple authors
Were these books the best, or what?
I remember loving these when I was a kid…it might be time to check them out again…
The original series of Choose Your Own Adventure books (with those great covers) were released between 1979 and 1998 and featured 184 books written by different authors.
Photo Credit: Amazon
6. Sweet Valley High by Francine Pascal
Pascal created the Sweet Valley High brand and has supervised ghostwriters to write books in the series since the first title was released in 1983.
The hundreds of books in the series have sold over 250 books around the world.
7. The Robert Langdon series by Dan Brown
Dan Brown has only written 5 books in his series featuring the character Robert Langdon but they have all been huge hits.
The series started in 2000 with Angels and Demons and Brown became a household name when The Da Vinci Code became a sensation in 2003. Brown’s last book in the series is 2017’s Origin.
Photo Credit: Amazon
8. Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney
Cartoonist Jeff Kinney published his first Diary of a Wimpy Kid book in 2007 and has written 16 books in the series so far (with a new one coming in October 2022).
More than 250 million copies of books in the series have been sold.
9. Noddy by Enid Blyton
Blyton (1897-1968) created the character of Noddy and wrote 24 books in the children’s book series from 1949-1963.
The books continue to sell at a high rate with sales at over 600,000 per year in France alone.
Photo Credit: Amazon
10. The Railway Series by Rev. W. Awdry and Christopher Awdry
If you’ve ever heard of Thomas the Tank Engine, then you’re probably familiar with The Railway Series.
The 42 books in the series were first written by Rev. W. Awdry from 1945 to 1972 and his son Christopher wrote them from 1983 to 2011.
