September Highlights - Romance Readers, Writers and Books

Is romance missing from modern courtships between women and men?

Is hook-up culture partly to blame?

The world of romance books tells a different story.

The desire for romance, sex, love, commitment or relationships are central themes in the genre books. 

Love the romance books and;

Happy times…

Travelling places…

Adventures,

Meeting new people…

Falling in love…

Hooked on a book…

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In my 2015 September Romance Highlights post, I wrote, “Romance books are largely women-centric and written by women for women… The romance industry is evolving, dynamic, and at the forefront of change.”

Some changes worth a mention include,

♥  Men are writing romance stories for women. I ran a google search on male romance writers and the first three entries were;

The Secret Lives of Male Romance Novelists

List of Male Romance Authors (Some using Feminine Pseudonyms)

On Goodreads – Looking for romances written by men

♥  Couples are reading romance stories together, which seems doubly romantic. Sarah Wendell from the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books website, interviewed 2 couples who read romance. The interview is available as a podcast or transcript, here’s the link, http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/ 

♥  Maverick women writers are upending the book industry. One of the authors, went against the norm, and self-published a romance story about a nice guy. Her series of books sold 12 million copies in three years. I’ll be posting an article about these writers selling millions on Google + later in the month.

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Hugh Howey is a best-selling American author, who writes Sci-Fi and also stories in other genres.  Over many years, Hugh has posted advice and guidance about self-publishing to help independent writers. Hugh Howey & Data Guy run a website called authorearnings.com. The purpose of the website is to gather and share information so that writers can make informed decisions. The secondary mission is to call for change within the publishing community for better pay and fairer terms in all contracts.

In July 2016, Data Guy made a presentation to the Romance Writers of America about Amazon author earnings for Romance books. He says that Romance is HUGE, but grossly under-reported. He discusses how many romance books are bought in the US every year, books in series versus stand-alone books, long or short stories, novel or novella, plus more. Here’s the link to the RWA presentation, author earnings-rwa-pan-presentation

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During September, I’ll be blogging and posting on Google+ , articles about romance readers, writers and books. It’s one of my favorite blog times of the year. 

I hope you can join me again, either here or over at G+ for a little romancing.

Happy-for-now or happy-ever-after?

♥ Ashlyn