Does Romance Only Exist In Books?

 

Is straight romance dead in America?  

Not if you look at book sales. Hollywood? Dead.  

Total unit sales for romance novels reached 47 million in 2021, including print and digital formats. This is a 24% increase compared to 2020, which recorded 37.9 million sold units.   

Sales were up again in 2022, making the genre a fast-growing one.  

During 2021, romance sales accounted for 18% of total adult fiction sales, making romance the second highest-selling fiction category.  

It is amazing to see romance books still sell so well.   

Or maybe it should not surprise me. Erotica fuels some of this growth.  So do books serving the LGBTQ community. However, romance books are not being converted into movies or streamed shows in proportion to their sales. Instead, lots of violent crime dramas, dystopian stories, and sci-fi seem to fill our screens, big and small. Why?  

Aren’t we ready for another 50 Shades of Gray movie or a spin-off TV show? Or what about good old romance of boy meets girl or of someone in a good marriage? Oddly, it is hard to find that on TV or in movies. Does Hollywood hate mainstream relationships? Does it believe people are incapable of love or that people will pay to see it depicted on screen?  

I was watching the airing of Ghost, a great love story told in a unique way, from 1990. That kind of movie does not exist today on any screen. Why?   

Hollywood just seems to be filled with writers and workers in loveless relationships, gay lifestyles, and broken marriages— and it shows in their product. Can’t anyone green-light a good heterosexual love story? Where are the positive role models for the vast majority of the world? It is a huge market!  

Maybe some studio will take this on and take ownership of a lucrative sector and start converting romance books into film and television. If the book world sets the pace, we should be seeing love and romance splattered everywhere soon.

 

 

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Brian Feinblum, the founder of this award-winning blog, can be reached at brianfeinblum@gmail.com He is available to help authors promote their story, sell their book, and grow their brand. He has over 30 years of experience in successfully helping thousands of authors in all genres. Let him be your advocate, teacher, and motivator!

 

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About Brian Feinblum

Brian Feinblum should be followed on Twitter @theprexpert. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog ©2023. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids, and Ferris, a black lab rescue dog. His writings are often featured in The Writer and IBPA’s The Independent.  This award-winning blog has generated over 3.2 million pageviews. With 4,400+ posts over the past dozen years, it was named one of the best book marketing blogs by BookBaby  http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs and recognized by Feedspot in 2021 and 2018 as one of the top book marketing blogs. It was also named by www.WinningWriters.com as a "best resource.” For the past three decades, including 21 years as the head of marketing for the nation’s largest book publicity firm, and two jobs at two independent presses, Brian has worked with many first-time, self-published, authors of all genres, right along with best-selling authors and celebrities such as: Dr. Ruth, Mark Victor Hansen, Joseph Finder, Katherine Spurway, Neil Rackham, Harvey Mackay, Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, Warren Adler, Cindy Adams, Todd Duncan, Susan RoAne, John C. Maxwell, Jeff Foxworthy, Seth Godin, and Henry Winkler. He recently hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America, and has spoken at ASJA, Independent Book Publishers Association Sarah Lawrence College, Nonfiction Writers Association, Cape Cod Writers Association, Willamette (Portland) Writers Association, APEX, and Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association. His letters-to-the-editor have been published in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Post, NY Daily News, Newsday, The Journal News (Westchester) and The Washington Post. He has been featured in The Sun Sentinel and Miami Herald. For more information, please consult: www.linkedin.com/in/brianfeinblum.