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The Data Does Not Exist to Support "Romance is a Billion Dollar Industry"

shelflovepodcast.substack.com · 3,040 words · saved by 1 readers

As we find ourselves entering the season of the romance novel trend piece, I ask that we all collectively pause before repeating bad romance data in our discourse. Sorry, the data we’re looking for really doesn’t exist — definitely not in 2024, and we should also scrutinize the credibility of RWA’s reports, which haven’t even been updated since 2013. The following are commonly-heard “data” points backing up the dominance of romance novels (at least commercially): do a google search and see how often these statements pop up. Their veracity ranges from “total bullshit” to “ehhh that conclusion is not supported by the data.” “25% of all book sales are romance.” / “One third of all book sales are romance.” / “Half of all book sales are romance.” At best, numbers like these could be describing the proportion of romance sold in mass market paperback fiction. There are various sources for these numbers: they’re all 10+ years old, and even the ones that are credible are only describing a much

As we find ourselves entering the season of the romance novel trend piece, I ask that we all collectively pause before repeating bad romance data in our discourse. Sorry, the data we’re looking for really doesn’t exist — definitely not in 2024, and we should also scrutinize the credibility of RWA’s reports, which haven’t even been updated since 2013. The following are commonly-heard “data” points backing up the dominance of romance novels (at least commercially): do a google search and see how often these statements pop up. Their veracity ranges from “total bullshit” to “ehhh that…

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