Sales have shown that romance novels continue to reach a huge audience, according to a piece in Citypaper.
Focusing on the Maryland Romance Writers Stage event which takes place this weekend as part of the Baltimore Book Festival 25, 26 and 27 September, the piece highlights that romance dominates fiction sales, with books bringing in more than a billion dollars a year.
Christi Barth, president of the Maryland Romance Writers Association, said that romance was bolstering the publishing industry, bringing in far more money than any other genre.
The Maryland Romance Writers Stage offers three days of readings by local and nationally known writers, how to write and how to sell workshops and discussions about writing and reading romance.
Barth said people often chose to self-publish romance because “if there are seven vampire books out, you can’t get a publisher to publish an eighth”, but that this didn’t mean the market was flooded with sub-par writing.
In the article, she said there are still good books out there, even if the market couldn’t find them a publisher and that sales showed that romance fiction is finding mass readership. Self-publishing has opened the doors to many new writers, who often question some of the stereotype surrounding the genre.
Maryland-based best-selling romance author Lea Nolan added that romance encompasses many different kinds of stories and many different levels of intricacy and complexity, and that romance often got a bad rap because it’s “written for women by women”.
Focusing on the Maryland Romance Writers Stage event which takes place this weekend as part of the Baltimore Book Festival 25, 26 and 27 September, the piece highlights that romance dominates fiction sales, with books bringing in more than a billion dollars a year.
Christi Barth, president of the Maryland Romance Writers Association, said that romance was bolstering the publishing industry, bringing in far more money than any other genre.
The Maryland Romance Writers Stage offers three days of readings by local and nationally known writers, how to write and how to sell workshops and discussions about writing and reading romance.
Barth said people often chose to self-publish romance because “if there are seven vampire books out, you can’t get a publisher to publish an eighth”, but that this didn’t mean the market was flooded with sub-par writing.
In the article, she said there are still good books out there, even if the market couldn’t find them a publisher and that sales showed that romance fiction is finding mass readership. Self-publishing has opened the doors to many new writers, who often question some of the stereotype surrounding the genre.
Maryland-based best-selling romance author Lea Nolan added that romance encompasses many different kinds of stories and many different levels of intricacy and complexity, and that romance often got a bad rap because it’s “written for women by women”.
