The Stephen King Used Book Market by the Numbers

Published by PangoBooks, Oct. 17, 2023

Six decades and over 65 books into his career, Stephen King remains one of the most popular fiction writers in the world. His writing has earned legions of devoted fans and inspired dozens of iconic movie and television adaptions, including classics like The Shining and The Shawshank Redemption. While most often associated with horror, King’s bibliography expands into the realms of sci-fi, fantasy, magical realism, and even the occasional piece of nonfiction. 


In advance of Halloween, we’ve done a little digging into PangoBooks’s sales history to give a glimpse at which King titles continue to rank as the most popular. If you have any King books on your shelf, this infographic might give you a sense of what’s trending and how much you can expect to earn by selling these titles via the Pango app. If you’re just someone who’s interested in getting into King for the first time, these popular titles are all great places to start, especially some of the more classic horror titles on the list. 


As you can see in the graphic above, some older works like It and Misery continue to rank at the top, while a few newer releases like 2022’s Fairy Tale and 2019’s The Institute are also being bought and sold regularly.  One note on the above: this data does not include any books that were co-authored by King and may not include any works he published under a pseudonym like Richard Bachman. That said, none of those titles would have ranked in the top 20 regardless. Another interesting data point: if you combine sales from all the various Dark Tower series books, starting with The Gunslinger, those would collectively rank as the best-selling King work.

Most Popular Stephen King Books on Pango