Some Loyal Readers -- Romance

Some readers tend to downplay the romance area of the market. I’m constantly impressed with the loyalty of these readers to their genre—and the mass amounts of money they spend on books. While people like to talk about some of the other genres such as mystery/ thriller or general fiction, romance continues to dominate the marketplace with 39.3% of the fiction market according to the November 21st issue of Publisher’s Weekly. Robin Lee Hatcher has written for this market for many years and includes some great statistics on her blog this week. The good news is the inspirational romance area of the marketplace continues to be the growing edge of this market. Instead of the old image of romance books, it’s changing to inspirational romance—and you can see that trend in the marketplace.

If you like statistics in this area, I recommend you check out this eight-page document from the Romance Writers of America—yes, it’s from 2004 but it’s still loaded with information.

OK, these statistics are great but what do you do with this information? Does it affect your writing plans for the days ahead? Will it affect your reading plans? What about the conferences you attend next year to learn more about the writing life? Possibly. It’s worth taking some time and plans for your own writing life.