Romance is the king of book publishing
What is the most popular genre in publishing in the United States? If you walk through an airport bookstore, you might think it’s business or self-help. Books like “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg dominate the front windows of bookshops in the departure lounge.
If you browse the stacks at your local independent bookstore, you might think it’s literary fiction—books like “Long Island” by Colm Tóibín. If you’re at a big chain store, you might think the bestselling genre is mystery or thrillers.
If you said any of those things, though, you would be wrong. The bestselling genre in bookselling is romance.
That’s right. Romance beats mysteries, self-help, business, thrillers, fantasy, biography, literary fiction, cookbooks—all of it.
When I say “romance,” I’m not referring to the concept of love. I’m not referring to a love story or a book with romantic themes. A romance novel is a specific genre of book, and a novel must have certain things to be classified as romance.
Here they are. Are you ready? Love and attraction must be the primary storyline. There must be doubt, tension, or conflict between the two main characters. And finally, a romance novel must have a happy ending. This part is not negotiable. If there isn’t a happy ending, it isn’t a romance novel. There is tension; there is conflict. But it’s always resolved in the end, with the hero and heroine getting together.
And so yes, I just gave you a spoiler for every single one of the thousands of romance novels published every year. The guy and girl—or the guy and guy—or the girl and girl—or the girl and the alien—whatever, the two main characters get together in the end.
The appeal of a romance novel is not the outcome, but the journey. The “how” is more important than the “what.” Romance novels are about complexities and tensions in relationships; they explore themes like trust, attraction, betrayal, desire, communication, conflict, disagreement, and personal differences.
Romance novels date back to the 18th Century; some say Jane Austen is the godmother of the romance genre. Over the years, romance novels have changed. They’ve mirrored the values of the times in which they were published. A romance from the 1800s would have focused on traditional courtship and emotional connections. The most daring scenes might have included furtive glances, or a man’s hand gently brushing a woman’s hand.
In the mid-20th Century, romance novels had a “sweet” period. These novels featured traditional ideas of love and marriage, with men and women playing their traditional roles. Kissing was common, but most sexual content was “closed door.” That means readers were invited to imagine what happened in the bedroom, but it was rarely, if ever, spelled out on the page.
That all changed in the 1970s. Just as society was going through a sexual revolution, so was the romance genre. Authors started to push boundaries of men’s and women’s roles, and the scenes became a lot steamier, and a lot more imaginative.
In the 1990s, the romance industry started to diversify with subgenres. And just like romance novels have their rules, so too do the subgenres have their rules and traditions. What are some subgenres of romance novels? I’m glad you asked.
There’s gay and lesbian romance. There’s paranormal romance. Paranormal romance combines the supernatural or science fiction with a romance storyline. Aliens and monsters have their own subgenres. Hey, aliens can fall in love too! There are religious romance genres. Teenage romance is a thing, too. And there’s the erotic subgenre. “Fifty Shades of Grey” is the most famous example.
Contemporary romance books have themes that reflect the times we’re in today, themes like online dating, long-distance relationships, social media, blended families, and career pressures.
The romance publishing industry today is as strong as ever, thanks to several economic forces. The first is e-readers. Let’s be honest, here. There’s a stigma to reading romance novels. Many people don’t want to be seen reading them in public. They have eye-catching, sexy covers; that might not be something you want to read on the train as you go to your Wall Street job. But e-readers allow people to read even the most erotic stories in public, without any shame.
Romance novels are fast to read; they’re usually about 200 pages. Some fans read ten or more romance novels a month. Some fans read one a day. If you buy ten books a month, pretty soon you’ll have a storage problem on your hands. E-readers let you go through lots of books with no waiting for shipments to arrive, and no huge bookshelves required to store your collection.
The other boost to the industry is self-publishing. There is one huge player in the romance publishing industry—Harlequin. So if Harlequin doesn’t accept your romance novel, it can be really hard to get sales in the traditional way. But now, any author can self-publish a novel on Amazon and sell it on the Kindle platform. In the rest of the publishing industry, self-published novels are considered less prestigious, less worthy than books published by a traditional publishing house.
But romance readers—in part because they read so much—romance readers are willing to give new authors a shot if they have a good story, and many readers don’t mind if a writer self-publishes or not.
So romance writers—more than writers of other genres—have found success by self-publishing. It’s definitely more legwork for the writer to self-publish, because the writer is in charge of the marketing. But still, it’s a win-win: the writers keep a greater percentage of the sales, and the readers can spend less money per title.
Jeff’s take
I have read romance novels. And you know what, I had no idea at the time! To the best of my knowledge, I have read a few…they are all by the author John Green. One is called “The Fault in our Stars.” And when I read those books, I had no idea they were considered romance novels! I might never have picked them up if I had known.
So maybe I—yes, I—have been too quick to judge the romance genre. And just to give it another try, I picked out a romance novel called “Funny Story” by Emily Henry to read over the holidays. I do not consider myself a romance reader, but I do consider myself open to new ideas. So let’s see how this goes. I thought about looking for an alien romance story, but I think I need to warm up to the genre first!
Great stories make learning English fun
