6,815,000 pageviews


Monday, February 15, 2021

The Fluctuating Popularity of the Regency Romance Genre

Publishers (like television executives) have this "thing." They find something that sells, and they do it and do it and do it until they have killed it. If you're around long enough you'll see Regency romance novels [set in Britain's early 19th Century] come in, be beaten to death, go out, then come back seven to ten years later. I was dropped by Avon in the mid-eighties because traditional Regencies weren't selling and they weren't going to do them anymore. Ten months later, they called and asked me for three more. Now traditional Regencies are dying again. I have my own theory on that--the publishers tried putting graphic sex in them, that was a mistake. Traditional Regencies were perfect little gems, never with a large following, but always there, always to be counted on by older readers and for young women just getting into reading romance. Traditional Regencies introduced several generations of readers to romance.

Kasey Michaels, likesbooks.com, 2005 

No comments:

Post a Comment