It's clear that romance titles are seeing an increase in sales in the Canadian market. In this month’s podcast, we look beyond the numbers and discuss why we're seeing this trend.

(Scroll down for a transcript of the conversation.)

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Transcript

Adaobi Nnaobi: Welcome to the BookNet Canada podcast. I’m Adaobi Nnaobi, the Marketing & Research Associate and the host of this month’s episode.

On Valentine’s week, we released a blog about romance book sales in the Canadian market and I’d like to expand on that a little bit and go beyond the sales numbers. Overall, Romance sales increased by 42% from 2017 to 2022. Looking closer, sales from 2017 to 2018 decreased by 5% and from 2018 to 2019 sales continued to drop by 11%. From 2019 to 2020 we again saw a decrease in sales, down 3%. But the downward trend changed in 2021 when year-over-year sales saw an increase of 11% and from 2021 to 2022 sales increased 54%.

Romance is one of the book subjects to watch this year. Here is a highlight from a recent Tech Forum session, Trendspotting: Book subjects on the move in the Canadian market. Monique Mongeon, BookNet’s SalesData expert and project manager, talks about the rise of romance titles and romance subject categories.

Monique Mongeon: You really can't talk about 2022 without looking at the performance of Romance. Across all age bands, Romance titles are up 51% over last year. This is incredible, huge growth for this category. And if we dive in on the percent change over last year by age band, we can see Romance in the Juvenile categories is down 17%, YA is up 19%, and Adult romance is up 56%. Pretty significant. And you really can't talk about Romance in 2022 without talking about Colleen Hoover, whose titles dominated week after week through much of the year. Five of the top 10 bestselling titles in all categories in 2022 were by Colleen Hoover. Aside from Colleen Hoover, there are other authors contributing to the romance renaissance. They're Ali Hazelwood, Emily Henry, and Carley Fortune. The bestselling romance titles of 2022 only really tell part of the story, however.

We talked a lot in 2021 about Bridgerton and the revival of period and regency romance that that Netflix series and the books drove through that year. While Regency had a huge hit on its hands, sales of items outside the sort of runaway bestseller in the category remained mostly flat year over year. So, there was a ton of growth in the category but not a huge explosion of new titles in this band. But that's not the case with every category in Romance. There are a few categories where we're seeing a ton of growth and a ton of new titles.

So, you can really see the hidden growth story of romance in 2022 is New Adult. And New Adult Romance is sort of the bridge subject between YA romance and adult romance. There's huge growth in the New Adult Romance category. It's up 120% over last year and 2021 was up 119% over 2020. So, this is somewhere to watch as readers in those YA categories look towards happy and escapist reads, and as they look to kind of graduate up into books in the adult BISACs. Here we're looking at some of the best-selling New Adult romances of 2022. We have entries from Ana Huang, Elle Kennedy, Krista and Becca Ritchie. In the New Adult category, there are a lot of these prolific authors with series. They write lots of books. There's tons of stuff for their readers to kind of move onto and explore and we really see that sort of series or related titles action in this category.

Adaobi: According to research from our newly released report, The Canadian Book Market 2022, The top-selling English-language print book in Canada last year was Colleen Hoover’s It Ends with Us. Sales of Hoover’s books drove a 55% increase in the Romance category when compared with 2021, with five of her titles topping the list.

It's clear from the data that romance books are seeing a resurgence. But why? The first place to look, of course, is TikTok. Data from our recent blog post, the real impact of #BookTok on book sales shows that the most popular Adult subject on #BookTok was Romance at 50% of all Adult titles, and that sales for 20 particular trending #BookTok titles increased exponentially, up 1,047% month-by-month from July 2019 to June 2022.

TikTok has been a big influence on media of all forms. Take how it’s impacted the music industry for example. TikTok has become a promising promotional tool for getting your music out there. The TikTok dances have made it easier for music to become viral. Everyone wants to learn the choreography of the latest trending TikTok song. From Megan Thee Stallion’s Savage to Lizzo’s About Damn Time and many more songs, TikTok has helped get songs on the charts and into the public consciousness faster than ever before. The same goes for books. TikTok has affected the way people read, what they read, and how book covers are designed.

As of March 15, 2023, #BookTok has 116.5 billion views; #RomanceBooks has 5.9 billion views; #RomanceRecs has 416.3 million views; #BookCover has 153.4 million views; and #BookCoverDesign has 19.7 million views. While TikTok is a great promotional tool and a great place to share content about books, that's only a part of the story. We need to dig a little deeper and discuss who is responsible for buying romance books in the first place: The readers.

Now I can only guess and speculate about why people are drawn to read more romance novels. It could just be a trend or it could be a little more than that. The reason one person may pick up a romance book could be completely different from why another person would pick up that same book. Although, something that has been a great equalizer in the last few years, and also a great starting point for this discussion is the pandemic. According to a Pew Research Centre Survey conducted in February 2022, most daters, 63%, say that dating is harder than before the Covid-19 pandemic, and how could it not be? Lockdown, masks and the politics surrounding them, and really everything else that surrounds the pandemic can very easily make dating even more complicated. After going through the struggle of dating during the pandemic and navigating the dating landscape now, it’s no wonder that books that offer a warm happy ending are comforting.

Another Pew Research Centre Survey conducted in July 2022 found that “Online dating is more common among younger adults than among older people. About half of those under 30, 53%, report having ever used a dating site or app.” Dating in general is difficult. I think the 2022 dating wrapped videos show that. With #DatingWrapped having over 78 million views on TikTok, it's an entertaining trend that chronicles just how adventurous and laborious dating can be in the modern age. It might as well be a second job. In the modern age of dating where it feels like everyone is on an app, romance novels starting out with dreamy meet-cutes and enemies to lovers tropes feel simple and heartwarming. This age group of course coincides with Gen Z which seem to be the ones responsible for the increase in sales of romance books.

Another promising lead is that readers are removing the guilt from guilty pleasure when it comes to romance books. Romance novels have had a bad wrap for a while as something silly and frivolous and if it includes sex scenes, which it mostly does, downright lascivious. This negative connotation has brought on an unmerited shame and stigma to the genre. But these days, young people are not standing for it. Not only are they proudly reading romance novels on their morning commute, they're also discussing and recommending these books on social media, in book clubs, and with friends. While you may not be comfortable talking about and assessing the sex scenes in the latest romance novel you bought with your grandma, it may not be something you hide from her either. No more hiding the cover of your romance novel or feeling slightly embarrassed when reading it in public (I’ve been there). Now, maybe you’ll make a new friend on the bus when you get asked about your thoughts on Book Lovers by Emily Henry.

Diversity is a big thing as well. As a black woman who grew up in Nigeria, all but a handful of the romance novels I read were written by white women about white women. And of course they were all straight. The very few black romance novels I got to read were tough to find and seemed rare. My black romance was found in American movies with a mainly black cast or in Nollywood movies and I’m not alone in this experience. Numerous people from different backgrounds all over the world have struggled with finding themselves in romance novels and while things are better now in terms of diversity, not much has changed. A lot of the modern romance novels being promoted and shared are written by white women about white women, still. But in my experience, it is much easier these days to find romance novels with more diverse main characters, sexual orientations, disabilities, and more. There may be something to say here about promoting more diverse romance novels and making them more mainstream but for now, knowing that diverse romance novels exist and knowing where to find them is a good first step.

Growing up, like most other books, romance novels were my escape and they still are. I suspect it’s the same for others out there enjoying romance books especially with the dating landscape being the way it is. Alexis Reliford’s article titled, “I Found Mr. Right — Unfortunately, He Only Exists In My Romance Novels” is a great example of why many of us seek comfort in romance novels. Now, I can’t tell you how long the romance resurgence is going to last but melting into a book and into someone else’s world that gets wrapped up in a tidy little bow, may just be what we need to get through the day.

This episode, I discussed some reasons why romance novels are on the rise but I’m far from the only one talking about it. The links to blog posts, articles, and other references I mentioned will be included in the show notes. If you prefer to read the transcript, that will also be linked in the show notes.

BookNet Canada acknowledges that its operations are remote and our colleagues contribute their work from the traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, Wendat, and Mi’kmaq Peoples, the original nations of the lands we now call Beeton, Brampton, Guelph, Halifax, Toronto, and Vaughan. We endorse the Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and support an ongoing shift from gatekeeping to spacemaking in the book industry.

We'd also like to acknowledge the Government of Canada for their financial support through the Canada Book Fund. And of course, thanks to you for listening.

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