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
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.
