I have been thinking a great deal about my favorite genre, Romance. I especially like historical romances set in England and Scotland. I like almost all time periods but I have a distinct fondness for the Medieval era. I have a number of friends who also read romances and they yearn for a library that will buy these books or for a small bookstore that will carry them. Yes Borders and Barnes and Noble and of course Amazon.com carry them but sometimes you have to travel a distance to get to one of those stores or wait forever for an order to come from Amazon. You can also find them at Wal-Mart, or in grocery stores but I have looked over what they carry and they do not carry very many authors and often not the best authors.
Over 50% of all mass market paperback sales are in the romance genre. This popular genre is often overlooked by small independent bookstores and libraries. One reason is because this genre is thought to be trashy and not well written. I can vouch for the quality of the writing and the complexity of the stories.
When I was director of a medium sized public library I wrote a newsletter article about my romance reading. I started the article with “Yes, I am coming out of the closet! I am a secret romance reader.” This article talked about the quality of the writing, the character development, the plots, and the settings. I found this article gave people the freedom to ask about these books and to ask me to order books by certain authors. I had been watching circulation and noticed that our small collection of romance novels circulated frequently. So, I started adding to the collection in that genre and buying romance in large print and those books were all going out. Our circulation really increased and the books were in high demand via interlibrary loan. The addition of these books to the collection is very economical as opposed to paying $24.95 for a book that might circulate 10 times as to paying $6.99 for a book that might circulate at least that many times and maybe double that.
Now don’t get me wrong! I believe in a balanced library collection that supports the interests and needs of all readers and I certainly spent thousands of dollars on a variety of fiction and non-fiction titles. However, we make a mistake in not thinking of those who like this genre and support them by buying books that they like.
On the website Librarything.com there are over 1,000 members in the group Romance – From Historical to Contemporary. This is a very active group with good discussion about a large variety of books and authors. I have found the discussions to be informative and they cover all aspects of the plots, the writing style of different authors, characters and settings.
As Diane Pershing, President of the Romance Writers of America says: “the recession-proof romance is a no-brainer. Romance novels offer rich, complex stories about good people overcoming obstacles to achieve intimacy and an eventual joining of their lives," she said. "Along the way, they have great sex," she said. "What's not to like?" http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/28/AR2009052804081_2.html
“The fact that there is such an abundance of these mass market paperback romances should tell us something. In fact, each year, over fifty percent of all paperback sales in the United States are romance novels. People are buying and reading them in large numbers.” http://theauctionrebel.com/731/the-auction-rebel-guide-to-romance-mass-market-paperbacks/
Well I hope I have made my point. That is there is an underserved population of readers out there who need libraries and small bookstores to begin to put aside prejudices about the books and the readers and begin to serve this population.
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