Harlequin's 2009 Romance Report

The Harlequin Romance Report is online. The theme for this year is where fantasy meets reality in romance.

The report features the annual North American and International surveys on romance plus a list of Must See Travel destinations and a host of other articles which are designed to let the media help celebrate Romance.

Bordering on the kewl

I happened to be looking through the RWA Market Update, mainly to see if the news of my old editor's move from acquisitions had been announced yet. It hasn't. But as I was scrolling down, I happen to see Black Lyon Publishing and their new line caught my eye -- Ancient Time Romance. It is dedicated to historical romance set before 1000 AD. Black Lyon is an e-publisher and as such does not pay an advance. It also means that it is small press, possibly micro. But it is non-vanity/non-subsidy.
What was interesting to me was that they were starting this line.
Several years I was told by many people that hand on heart, ancient romance would NEVER ever sell. Luckily I did not listen and neither did Harlequin Mills and Boon. The senior editor of Historicals always knew she wanted to publish strong manuscripts set in the time period. Just as she wants to publish strong manuscripts set in the early 20th century (cue Elizatbeth Lane's On the Wings of Love and Nicola Cornick's Edwardian -- The Last Rake in London)
From the RWR, I saw that Dorchester was also publishing something -- Romano British, I believe.
So it is sort of kewl to be at the forefront of a trend. To be able to think -- ah, but I told you so. People do want to read it.
I am currently suffering from this cold. And my wip is coming along. I have discovered one or two spots where I went wrong, but it is far better for me to discover it. My lovely editor would have questioned it in any case. She is like that...

Trends and Historicals

The RWR this month published an article by a Kensington and Dorchester author, Deborah McGillivray about the fact historicals are back. Or indeed did they ever go away? Basically the market share became smaller, publishing slots fewer, but they still represent a large percentage of readers.
The author apparently did some research with Amazon community and discovered that most of her respondents were first time/only been reading historical for a year or two. She had expected that it would be readers returning to the fold as it were but the genre is attracting new readers. There are several problems with a self selecting sample and the size was probably too small to be of lasting value, but it was interesting. From the letters I get, I too see a lot of new to historical readers.
One of the reasons McGillvray gave was the increased popularity of certain television shows such as Rome, the Tudors, Deadwood etc had stimulated interested. Of course, the BBC showed a very high bonnet count this Christmas as well. Well done historical series in the media are popular.
So what are the trends in Historical romance.
One big one I would say is the early middle ages. I know from my conversations with editors that the early middle age/warrior books are proving popular. It is partly why they decided to put Taken by the Viking into the US before I finished the series.
I think the early Victorian period/Industrial revolution will be a growing area. A number of authors have had success with that, including me with A Christmas Wedding Wager. The success of Cranford, North and South, and Jane Eyre on television shows that there is an appetite for this period. I understand that there is a movie about the young Victoria that is coming out soon. And I do think for a certain section of readers, they do not make too big a distinction between early Victorian and Regency.
I am not seeing paranormal in historicals as a trend at HH btw. Other publishers may be, but not HH. The HH reader still seems to prefer the straight historical.
I also think there remains a trend for Unusual historicals. However, the stories have to be strong.
But ultimately the big trend in historicals is the same as it always was -- excellent stories that hold readers gripped to their seats.
As with anything in romance publishing, things go in cycles. I fully expect to hear that Vampires have reached their peak, or that law enforcement heroes have maxxed out. This is mainly because they have been so strong over the past few years and publishing slots have increased. It does not mean that no books are being sold with these themes, simply that the growth rate has slowed and the books need to be super strong.
Ultimately, it is the strength of the story that counts.

UPDATE:
My lovely, lovely editor said that she preferred a strong manuscript from me and was quite happy to move my deadline to achieve it. So I do not have to pull several all nighters.

Latest Romance Stats

The November edition of the RWR has the latest romance reading stats. I found them interesting.
Romance had 26.4% share of all market categories. It was only surpassed by the religion/inspirational category. Romance fiction sales were $1,370 million compared to Mystery sales of $422 million or Sci fi sales of $495 million. You do the math. In my view the basic reason why so much more advertising is spent on mystery etc is that far fewer mystery books are published as opposed to the 6,400 titles of romance that were published.
In the new technology of ebooks, the trend continues. According to Peter Wayner writing in the New York Times last August, early ebook lists were dominated by sci fi and other genres favoured by men, but now the lists showed romance and women's fiction were coming to dominate. This fact should not surprise anyone as according an AP/IPOS poll, women read more than men -- nearly twice as much. On average women read nine books per year while men only manage five. Women are also more likely to read every major category of books. And of people who read books, one in five reads romance novels.
As a general rule of thumb, men are more likely to be early adopters of technology. The shift in the ebook lists could be interpreted to mean that ebooks are here to stay. BUT the amount spent on ebook, despite doubling in 2006 remains tiny at $24 million. Print is not dead yet.
The leading sub genres of Romance appearing on the best seller lists were suspense, historical and paranormal. Harlequin remains the top Romance book publisher, according to Simba estimates. The leading US romance novelists were Nora Roberts, Sandra Brown, Catherine Coulter and Debbie Macomber. All of whom started out by writing category. I think they were all with Sil, Debbie Macomber is the one I have a question about as I can't think of which line she wrote for. Super? Nora Roberts and Sandra Brown were SR and Catherine Coulter was SIM. Shades of my college free time reading...
If you look at romance books published -- 40% were series romance. 17% historical single title, 16 percent were contemporary. Paranormal accounted for 9%. This shows the massive increase in the paranormal romance market in recent years as not so very long ago it was under 5% of books published. The big unanswered question is how large is the paranormal market and has it peaked.
For 2007, sales of romance fiction are expected to hold steady. The projected increase in book sales (2.6%) is down to the last book of Harry Potter hitting the stands.
Anyway, I thought it very interesting.

A Review for TRVM and trying times --bees

Julie Bunello has posted a lovely review on cataromance for . My favourite bit was Michelle Styles is one of the most exciting and original voices in historical romance and her latest novel, The Roman’s Virgin Mistress, is a superbly crafted tale which will hold her readers in thrall! It is wonderful to think that someone feels I have an exciting and original voice.
I also liked: Laced with plenty of passion, adventure and intrigue, The Roman’s Virgin Mistress is an engrossing historical romance written by a novelist who seamlessly interweaves historical detail with high drama, intense emotion and sizzling sensuality.
Julie, of course is a highly expereinced reviewer and takes her reviewing very seriously. If you have not seen the new look cataromance, be sure and do so. It is wonderful.
I was also pleased to read on Roxanne St Clair's RWA blog that It's true, it's true: the historical romance novel is alive and selling! In the words of a buyer from one of the major chains, historicals are "trending up" for the first time in a while. This is especially true of the bestselling authors of historical romance, and booksellers are closely watching the numbers of new and midlist authors in this sub genre, because increased sales from those authors is the sign that the trend is real and lasting. Terrific news for the hundreds of writers and millions of readers of the beloved historical.

Let us hope the trend is long and lasting. And readers continue to enjoy my books. The only thing I can do is to make my books as enjoyable as possible.

Yesterday was a day of frustration. We had a bee swarm. In mid July! Arrogantly I had considered we were beyond such things. Most of the swarms happen in late May/early June. By mid'July there is no real chance of getting honey off a swarm. The annoying part is that honey production also stops on the hive they swarmed from.
This time, the swarm which was about the size of a basketball -- so a proper swarm with the old queen rather than a cast -- landed in the Monterey cypress. I had no wish to lop bits of the tree off, so I attempted to use smoke and a skep. They appered to go into the skep, BUT when I checked later in the midst of a rainstorm, the bees had vanished. So did they give up and go back to to their hive? Or take off for somewhere more suitible? I don't know. All I know was that I had to lug the spare brood box back into the house. As I did not know which hive the bees had come from, I could not simply dump them back in. My thought was to put them in their own hive and then reunited with whichever colony seemed weakest AFTER I had taken the honey off.
Once the rain stops, I will have to check the honey situation and try to determine which hive is making a new queen.
SIGH.