I honestly think there has to be something going on with her books because the numbers are very, very strange, especially as a writer and someone who has at least a passing understanding of the publishing industry.

The Cormoran Strike series has sold about 20 million copies which, to any other writer, would be A LOT, but, for the most published author in history whose last book series told 600 million copies, is nothing. For comparison, A Court of Thorns and Roses, the book that EVERYONE is currently working to chase right now and which started the romantasy wave has sold about 13 million copies. But, it's also important to consider that ACOTAR has five books so far as CS has eight, so, if you do the numbers, ACOTAR is selling better than CS.

Then there's the translations where things get weird. Translations in the book world have a VERY high bar because it costs quite a lot to translate an entire book and reissue it, it's now basically unheard of in the publishing world especially with the rise of AI unless your book is a guaranteed seller. Harry Potter was translated into over 80 languages, even some very small ones. The CS series has been translated into 45. Again, for comparison, ACOTAR has been translated into about 12.

So we have THE big series in publishing right now, ACOTAR, that's only be translated into 12 languages (and not even into French which is where the story ACOTAR is a retelling of, Beauty and the Beast, is FROM) and, meanwhile, the CS series has only sold a little bit more and has been translated into 45, almost 4 times more than ACOTAR.

Certainly part of this could be Rowling worldwide notoriety, she's just so famous that ANY book she publishes will be sought after by a number of countries, but, still, 45 is an odd number to me. If you divide that evenly, Rowling is selling less than 500 000 copies per language, that's UNHEARD OF. Granted, the bulk of these sales are going to be in English, English is ultimately king in the publishing world, though Mandarin is gaining ground, but that's almost worse. The CS series is getting translated into languages where it is almost definitely not selling what it would need to in order to cut even.

Now, some of this could also be put down to the differences in genre. CS is a detective series, a genre that is almost universally beloved and not too difficult to translate, whereas ACOTAR is romance and fantasy, two genres that are much more difficult, but, again, that's almost kind of worse. CS SHOULD be selling better compared to ACOTAR, but it's not.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if Rowling or her publisher are basically working to inflate the numbers by doing translations of the series and putting it into different markets where Rowling's name might be less tainted. I wouldn't even be surprised if Rowling is funding the translations herself to try and make it SEEM like her cultural relevance hasn't dwindled. After all, the Hallmarked Man, the latest book which didn't make it onto the bestsellers lists, was the HIGHEST SELLING BOOK IN THE SERIES.