John Gray's Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, which in 1996 sold 300,000 copies. No other Australian novelist sells anywhere near Courtenay. Tim Winton's The Riders sold 100,000 copies in 1996. Colleen McCulloch, of Thorn Birds fame, sold 60,000 copies of her First Man in Rome in 1991. Even new releases of avowedly popular writers such as Robert Barrett manage only about a sixth of what Courtenay sells.
Bestsellers generally rack up the bulk of their sales in a single year.
Christopher Green's Toddler Taming is an exception, never selling more than 30,000 copies in any single year but featuring in all but one of the APA's lists for the decade. Second, Paul Jennings is clearly the most popular Australian author after Courtenay. He has dominated the children's list for the '90s, outselling in Australia even international megastars such as Roald Dahl. J.K. Rowling's strongest selling Harry Potter book sold 130,000 copies in 1999. Jennings' Undone sold 135,000 copies in 1993.