April 20, 2009
sales of romance novels are up
Like the Depression-era readers who fueled blockbuster sales of Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone With the Wind,” today’s readers are looking for an escape from the grim realities of layoffs, foreclosures and shrinking 401(k) balances.
“Given the general dismay and gloominess,” said Jennifer Lampe, a lawyer in Des Moines and avid romance reader who runs a book blog under the pseudonym Jane Litte at dearauthor.com, “reading something like a romance with a happy ending is really kind of a relief.”
Many readers are still buying. “I would give up something else if money was tight,” said Annmarie Anderson, a district manager in Atlanta for a national retail chain, who said she still spent about $100 on romance novels each month. “I would give up my manicure and pedicure. I have my priority list, and books are pretty high on my priority list.”
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It sounds like good news to me, both that dedicated readers are still reading, no matter what it is, and that sales in other categories, while declining, seem to be declining less precipitously than sales of–say–automobiles and CDs.