Did you know that...?
- Romance novels keep most of the publishing industry in business. There would be no literary fiction without romance novels paying the bills.
- Romance novels create $1.08 billion a year in revenue and account for 34% of the total fiction market in the United States.
- The romance novel industry is about the size of the mystery novel genre and science fiction/fantasy genre markets combined.
- Annually, one-third of all mass market fiction books sold are romance novels.
- In 2014, Nielson data reported that 39 percent of all ebooks sold were romance novels—a number that continues to grow each year.
- Unsurprisingly, romance novel sales have boomed since the start of the pandemic. According to Nielsen Book Scan, in March 2021 romance novels showed a 24% increase in sales over the previous year.
- Many prestigious colleges and universities now include romance novels in their literature courses, including the University of Sussex, Duke University and Yale University.
- Romance novels frequently top the major bestseller lists. This past week, two of the top 10 books on the UK's Sunday Times bestseller list (that's one fifth!) were Romances.
- More than 70 million people in the USA alone read at least one romance novel per year.
- Romance novels are not written by (or for) bored housewives. Romance writers (and readers) come from every walk of life, including lawyers, doctors, academics, graphic designers, teachers...and SAH moms.
Sources:
- https://whydoeseverythingsuck.net/blog/book-reading-statistics/
- https://romanticnovelistsassociation.org/news_article/rna-open-letter-to-the-sunday-times/
- https://www.huffpost.com/archive/ca/entry/romance-novels_b_7109458
- https://thehowler.org/12407/opinions/the-romance-genre-hate-needs-to-stop/
- https://publishingperspectives.com/2020/08/trade-published-romance-sees-a-coronavirus-boost-in-the-states-covid19/
- https://fortune.com/2021/08/21/rom-com-pandemic-book-sales-romance-bookstore-day/
- https://amypennza.com/10-facts-about-romance-novel-industry/
