Different genres come with different reader expectations that pertain to setting. For instance, readers expect cozies to be set in small towns and hard-boiled detective stories to be based in cities. In some genres, such as fantasy, world building is crucial.
In 2023, romance fiction was the top-earning subgenre of fiction in the United States. Even if you're not a romance reader-yet-you've likely picked up on the buzz. Romance readership has grown exponentially since the hellish year that was 2020, and it was not a small market to begin with. Read more
For decades, the Romance Writers of America (RWA) served as a champion for the mostly female authors of one of the country's most popular - and denigrated - genres of fiction. Read more
Saying that romance is a genre the literati love to hate is a hackneyed truism. The preponderance of tropes, if they're not well handled, can give romance a predictable or formulaic feel. Why, then, are they so enduringly popular? Why do they continue to outsell so many other genres, when the story's outcome in all cases is a given?
A new generation of romance novel consumers has moved a long-standing three-way conversation between reader, writer and publisher onto social media, industry insiders say, speeding up an already fast-moving segment of the publishing world.
Last year ended #HEA (that's happily ever after) for Romance & Sagas, as sales continued an upward BookTok-boosted momentum to hit £62.4m through Nielsen BookScan's Total Consumer Market. That's the category's second-best total ever, only bettered by 2012's Fifty Shades of Grey-fuelled (£68.3m) climax.
"One of the things that I've always been into, passionate about, and focused on is love stories," says Monique Patterson, in one heck of an understatement. The romance publishing veteran, who was tapped in February to helm Bramble, Tor Publishing Group's new romance imprint, has made a top-tier publishing career out of finding and putting out romance novels across a span of subgenres. Read more
‘One person writing in a quiet room, trying to connect with another person, reading in another quiet-or maybe not so quiet-room. Stories can entertain, sometimes teach or argue a point. But for me the essential thing is that they communicate feelings. That they appeal to what we share as human beings across our borders and divides.
A report has found that more than half of children's books published in the last decade with a minoritised ethnic main character were by white authors and illustrators.
The book industry has launched an open letter calling on the government to create a plan to boost reading for pleasure for children across the UK. The letter invited the Prime Minister "to make a cross-government commitment to prioritise the role of reading for pleasure for children", investing in the development of children and the future of the country.
Author Katherine Rundell and Claire Wilson, president of the Association of Authors' AgentsThe association of UK agents. Their website (http://www.agentsassoc.co.uk/index.html) gives a Directory of Members and a code of practice, but no information about the agencies other than their names. The association refers visitors to the UK agent listings from The Writers' & Artists' Yearbook on the WritersServices site. (AAA), have signed the open letter launched by the book industry, calling on the Prime Minister to address the decline in reading for pleasure among children.
'Write without pay until somebody offers pay. If nobody offers within three years, the candidate may look upon this circumstance with the most implicit confidence as the sign that sawing wood is what he was intended for.'