- Who
- Fifty Shades of Grey
- What
- 16,994,323 unit(s) sold
- Where
- Not Applicable ()
- When
The best-selling novel with independently verified sales is Fifty Shades of Grey by E L James (USA). The book was initially self-published by the author on 20 June 2011, but was later picked up by Vintage Books (an imprint of Penguin Random House). Combined sales for all editions tracked by the NPD Group (in the USA) and Nielsen Book Research (in other global territories) add up to 16,994,323 copies as of November 2021.
The publishing industry has long been opposed to widespread sharing of sales information, and in many countries this opposition remains. As a result, this data goes back only as far as the early to mid 2000s for the key markets.
