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Who Reads Romance Novels?

By judythemorgan|2021-10-31T20:19:56-05:00November 1st, 2021|Make Me Think Monday|0 Comments

The answer might surprise you.

Romance novels are the largest genre of all literature.

One-third of all mass-market fiction sold is romance novels.
Romance book sales exceed $1 billion every year, selling more than many other genres combined.

Lots of people read romance. The consensus has always been that romance readers are single women in possession of cats and in want of a man.

The 2017 Romance Writers of America study blew that theory out of the water. According to their survey, romance readers are:

Eighty-two percent Female
Eighteen percent Male
Average age: 35–39 years old
The highest percentage of readers fall between the ages of 25-34
One-fourth of the readers are male

Nielsen BookScan’s data reported people of color make up roughly one-fifth of the romance buyers, while people aged forty-five and older hold more than 40 percent of the market.

Romance fiction is as diverse as our world. Each title is unique in tone and style, setting (any place or time), and varies in levels of sensuality—ranging from sweet to extremely hot. That’s why readers come back repeatedly.

Choices include series novels or single titles. Series can mean books issued under a common imprint/series name usually published by Harlequin, Check here for a list of Harlequin’s series lines. Another series type is stories written in specific locales or about specific families. Marie Force and Bella Andre are popular series authors.

Single-title romances, longer romances released individually and not part of a numbered series, are another option. These stories have deeper plots with romance playing the key role.

Entertainment, relaxation, and escape are most often cited as reasons for reading romance novels. The main appeal of the genre lies in the fact that the stories fulfill reader expectations. All romance novels have a central love story and an emotionally satisfying ending.

Themes vary and whether you enjoy contemporary dialogue, historical settings, mystery, or thrillers, you’ll find a romance novel waiting to offer an escape and a reassurance that things can end on a positive note.

If you haven’t tried a romance, let me suggest my latest release at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Or you can check out my other titles on my website Choose from series and single titles.

You might be surprised at how much you enjoy the escape.

Who reads Romance?

I read a blog recently where certain elements of the blogger’s stories were listed with the question, Are you my reader? That got me to thinking about who reads romance.

According to Maya Rodale, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that romance readers are single women in possession of cats and in want of a man.”

I’m a long time romance reader and neither truth applies to me.

She adds, “Other “true” facts about the romance reader: They’re “nice people with bad taste in books”, uneducated, bored, stupid, “lack romance in their lives.” Or if we want to be really specific, they’re “middle aged women who are bored in their marriages and want to fantasize about hard, chiseled men.” Or maybe they’re “younger women who are using them as emotional porn.”

None of those characteristics apply to me either.

So who reads romance?

Romance Writers of America did a survey and created the graph below to identify romance novel readers. These demographics are a closer match to who I am as a romance reader.