News Flash: Romance is Not the Number One Genre

 

Today’s blog is a guest piece from a real authority in the business.  Dan Case most likely had the first on-line newsletter.  He has been the editor of Writing for Dollars for many years.  He is also the owner of AWOC.COM Publishing, a small publisher which now has over 150 books to its credit.  He is a very successful marketer of digital books.  Today, he has some interesting facts for us, AND he’s giving away a book to one of those who leave a comment.  So, tell us what you think about the genres and get entered in the drawing for a free book.  Thanks.  Here’s Dan.

Romance isn’t the bestselling genre? No way. Everyone says it IS number one. Isn’t that correct?

Yes… sort of. I’m speaking of the Romance genre (or category) of commercial fiction. Whenever you hear that Romance is the number-one-selling genre, the source that states this has lumped all romances into one big category. Romance covers dozens of sub-genres—Suspense Romance, Contemporary Romance, Historical Romance, Paranormal Romance, Western Romance, Victorian Romance, Fantasy Romance and many more. All of these sub-categories have one thing in common… the romance formula.

I’m a publisher. In the beginning, I published non-fiction books for writers. As I became more adept at marketing online, I expanded into other areas of non-fiction. Then one day, I did a favor for an author friend of mine and published his novel. He had a previous bad experience with a small publisher that turned out to be a vanity press… Long story. Needless to say, I published his novel and he was good at marketing and it sold reasonably well. Then came Kindle. I published the novel on the Kindle and it sold REALLY well. I started accepting more novels and selling then also. Within two years I was no longer looking for non-fiction. I was suddenly a fiction house. Now, that’s almost all I publish… novels. Mostly ebooks, very few in paperback.

Which novel genre sells best?

Icase-romance am asked this question a lot from writers. At first, I could only say, “I think romance sells best, but I don’t publish many romance novels. I sell more mystery and thriller novels than anything else.” This wasn’t a very scientific answer. I don’t subscribe to any of the industry periodicals that compile sales statistics and bestseller lists. Mainly because they are no longer accurate because the vast majority of ebook sales are sold on Amazon and Amazon does not report their book sales numbers to anyone.

I decided to go a different way to find an answer. I went to the number one direct marketing company for ebooks, BookBub. They market ebooks directly to over three million readers by email. Their subscribers specify which genre they want to hear about and Bookbub publishes these numbers on their site for benefit of the advertisers. At Bookbub, Romance is not a category by itself. They break it down into some of its sub-genres—Contemporary Romance, Romantic Suspense, Historical Romance, Erotic Romance.

The number one genre at Bookbub?

Mystery.

Thrillers are a close second, with Historical, Action and Adventure, and Contemporary Romance farther down the list with about the same numbers.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you’ll sell more if you write Mystery as opposed to Contemporary Romance. It just means that a Bookbub ad for Mystery will go to more people than an ad for Contemporary Romance. The idea that Mystery is the number one genre just because it has more readers than any of the Romance categories on Bookbub isn’t very scientific either, because like Romance, Mystery has dozens of sub-categories—Cozy, Detective, Woman Sleuth, Procedural, Hard boiled.

So what genre will be the best genre for you to have a bestseller in? That’s what you really want to know isn’t it?

For an unknown writer, it would be best if you chose a category where you can identify a very large number of readers. And yes, it can be a bestseller in Romance or Mystery or Thriller ONLY if you write a great book. Period.

.JIM:  Thanks, Dan for enlightening us.  And since I write mysteries, I’m glad to hear that.  Folks, you can find out more about Dan Case’s publishing at:  www.awoc.com

And, Dan is giving away a book to one person selected at random from those who comment.  So, leave a comment (even a few words will do) and get a change – and it’s FREE.

8 thoughts on “News Flash: Romance is Not the Number One Genre

  1. Very interesting post. I worked at a library for a few years and saw that romances seemed to be check out the most, with the exception of non-fiction. However, I never took into consideration that mysteries contained romance, too. You’ve put this in a whole new light for me. Thanks!

  2. When I first began writing fiction, one of my close friends thought I should write romance because “it sells so well”. She even gave me a book on how to write romance. But I’d always read mysteries of all kinds, so I wanted to write what I enjoyed reading. Besides, I don’t think even a book on how to do it would help me write romance. I just don’t have a romantic bone in my body, but I do enjoy thinkig of ways to kill people! I stuck with mystery, and I’m glad I did. I’m having a lot of fun dreaming up murder puzzles.

  3. Dan is spot on. Too many authors try to be all things to all readers. They dont know the difference between the various genre categories. Several hundred thousand copies of books i have authored for a variety of publishers, including Dan, have been sold because they each targeted a specific reader interest, and did not try to be all things to all readers. Good writing, good editing, great marketing. Dan knows!

  4. Dan’l Case is absolutely right–and a smart businessman. I’ve published with all the Big Five publishers–and I’ve also published a number of books with Dan’l. And will continue to publish with him.
    chuck sasser

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