Who Reads Romance?

 During any given period, women who read romance novels have a tendency to have twice as many lovers as those who don’t. People who read romance have sex 70% more often than those who don't.

The Romance Reader

In 2017, RWA commissioned

"The Romance Book Buyer 2017: A Study by NPD Book for Romance Writers of America."

A portion of the results can be found below. 

Who is the romance reader?

·        Female: 82%

·        Male: 18%

·        Average age of the romance reader: 35–39 years old

·        Ethnicity:

• 73% White/Caucasian
•  12% Black/African American
• 7% Latino/Hispanic
• 4% Asian/Asian American.

·        Sexual orientation:

• 86% heterosexual or straight
• 9%  bisexual, pansexual, or other bi+ identity
• 2% gay or lesbian.

Reading Habits

·        Most frequent readers are younger, aged 34 and below.

·        92% of survey respondents are print readers

·        64% are e-book readers

·        35% are audiobook users.

·        Tablets and smartphones are the most-used devices to read e-books.

·        Half of romance readers read romantic suspense,

• followed by erotic
• historical as the most popular genres.

·        Younger readers read more Young Adult, Erotic, and

• Paranormal Romance and less Contemporary Romance than older readers.

Acquiring Romance Books

·        Top responses for how romance readers acquire romance novels:

• borrow from a library
• purchase in brick-and-mortar bookstores
• acquire them from friends/relatives
• purchase in print via an online store
• purchase them as an e-book via an online store.

·        A higher percentage of readers buy from bricks-and-mortar stores than online,

• and 15% use a subscription service.

·        One-third of readers searched for new authors in the past six months.

·        Content is listed as a more important purchase influence than recommendations.

Further Insights

The future of romance is the younger emerging readership.

These younger readers are:

·        diverse in sexual orientation and in ethnicity

·        more male

·        frequent readers

·        listening to audiobooks

·        reading e-books on smartphones

·        consuming YA, erotic, and paranormal romance

·        shopping at a greater number of online retailers

·        extremely engaged on social media and willing to experiment with new authors

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Source and Methodology

Source: The Romance Book Buyer 2017: A Study by NPD Book for Romance Writers of America
Methodology

·        Sample of 2,000 romance book readers

·        Survey fielded in December 2017

·        Quota for gender and age

• based on nationally representative sample of book buyers
• who said they were likely to read a romance book in the future

·        Screener question:

• Do you read romance fiction novels?
• This would include books where
• (1) there is a central love story and        
• (2) the end of the story is positive.

Permission is granted by Romance Writers of America to link to this page

and/or use portions of the statistics with proper citation.

Do not reprint or copy this information in its entirety. 
^†Source: NPD Books Romance Landscape:

A Study by NPD Book for Romance Writers of America.