Would you please tell me which tense would you use here and why?
Ian McBain had been writing for many years before he came to fame with his second novel in 1993. Since then he has written more than twenty thrillers, which have been translated into more than thirty languages. If his latest novel, Dead Body, reaches the top of the fiction charts, he will have had / will have a record number of best-selling thrillers.
Is it possible to use the future simple instead of the future perfect in the last sentence or not?
I can't see how "will have had" fits that context.
It's true that if he does get the record he'll probably eventually lose it; but then, he will have had the record for a period of time.