By Sara Fitzgerald
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, April 30, 2006; F01
This weekend, as they have for 22 years, members of Washington Romance Writers have gathered for an annual retreat in Harper's Ferry. There they are hearing from best-selling authors, editors and agents, swapping industry gossip and helping their unpublished members learn the finer points of their craft. But the industry that their work fuels is far more diverse and forward-looking than the bodice-ripping stereotype of old. And even as the writers were setting off for the conference, Harlequin, the largest publisher of romance fiction, was announcing a deal that will give readers a daily dose of romance fiction on their cellphones.
High-tech or low, some things haven't changed. A romance, as defined by the Romance Writers of America, has two basic elements: a central love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending. But a romance heroine who suddenly becomes a vampire? A romantic interest who is a former drug dealer trying to resist the lure of the streets?
Such are the ways that, in recent years, authors and publishers have pushed the definition of romance into a diverse range of subgenres and publishing formats.
Romance publishing is a big business. In 2004, the latest year for which the RWA has compiled figures, romance fiction generated $1.2 billion worth of sales, based on data supplied by Ipsos Book Trends. Some 2,285 romance titles were released that year, accounting for 54.9 percent of mass-market paperback sales and 39.3 percent of all fiction sold in this country.
Of the paperback titles that carried "romance" on their spines, 1,468 were considered "contemporaries"; 477 were "historicals"; 167 were "inspirationals," aimed at readers interested in Christian, "faith-oriented," books; and 173 were "paranormals," or books, according to the RWA's definition, with " 'other-worldly' elements." And those are just the broad categories.
"Romance, as a genre, evolves and shifts, just as relationships and societal mores evolve and shift over time," says Nora Roberts of Keedysville, Md., one of the genre's most successful and prolific authors. "While the key to a romance novel is, and always will be, the relationship between the two main characters and the emotions that develop between them, the character type, the backgrounds and the personal and professional dynamics between them have evolved to reflect the times we live in."
In 2005, Harlequin, the grandmother of romance publishers, reported selling 131 million books in 26 languages in 109 international markets. It accounted for about half of the books in the RWA's 2004 tally.
The expansion of the overall women's popular fiction market is apparent in the breadth of the sub-genres that Harlequin and many of its competitors now publish. Yes, there are books written for African American readers, and some titles aimed at Hispanic readers, in Spanish and in English. But you'll also find erotica and inspirationals and books that feature fathers and children -- and women who aren't interested in either.
For example, Harlequin's more recent additions include Harlequin NEXT and Silhouette Bombshell. Harlequin markets NEXT as a line "of entertaining novels about women facing up to the glorious unpredictability of life . . . relevant for every woman who has wondered, 'What's next?' " Bombshell, meanwhile, is modeled on characters such as Sydney Bristow in the television show "Alias," or, as Harlequin describes her, "strong, sexy, and savvy, she'll save the day and get her men -- both good and bad."
Isabel Swift, a veteran editor who is vice president for author and asset development in Harlequin's new business development group, noted that these two lines are sold as monthly series, and while they "definitely have a romantic element, they don't have the quintessential happy ending. It's a woman's search for herself, not a search for a guy."
"A lot of this market involves giving people something they can't get anywhere else," says Kate Duffy, editorial director of Kensington Publishing, the second-biggest romance publisher on the RWA's 2004 list, with 195 titles. "Whether it's suspense or paranormal, we're trying to give them more." Duffy started in the industry in 1974, editing five Gothic novels a month ("women with a peignoir and a candle," she quips) for Popular Library; she's been with Kensington for 11 years.
And then there is erotica, a rapidly growing segment of the romance market that can be found in lines such as Harlequin's new Spice and Kensington's Aphrodisia.
Back in 1999, Duffy says, "we figured out that more sex means more sales. We've been tracking and publishing hotter and hotter romances."
E-publishing successes have helped print publishers identify new market niches, including erotica.
One company that pointed the way to the market for what it now trademarks as "romantica" is Ellora's Cave Publishing Inc. In 2000, Tina Engler was frustrated by her inability to sell her manuscripts to traditional publishing houses. So she decided to do it herself, setting up a Web site and writing erotic romance under the pseudonym Jaid Black. She solicited the works of other authors and began distributing them, as well. In the words of her mother, company chief executive Patty Marks, "She was everything. She took e-commerce classes. She administered the Web site. We didn't have a shopping cart [feature] at the beginning."
The site took off, largely by word of mouth. By early 2004, the company began purchasing ads in the New York Times Sunday Book Review and distributing its titles in print through retailers Borders and Waldenbooks, as well as BarnesandNoble.com and Amazon.com. Now, the company says, close to 200 authors receive monthly royalty checks from the company, ranging from $20 to $20,000.
From the writer's perspective, the changes in the romance field can be liberating or infuriating, depending on where you sit. The RWA counts more than 100 authors or pseudonyms on its "Honor Roll" of members whose romances or other books have made the bestseller lists of the New York Times (Top 15), Publishers' Weekly (Top 15) or USA Today (Top 50). But the diversification of lines can also mean smaller press runs, sell-throughs and royalty payments for those who haven't achieved bestseller status. Nevertheless, the diversity does mean that writers can find publishing homes for books that in years past might never have been published.
Here again, technology has had an impact. MaryJanice Davidson, a 36-year-old Minnesota writer, described her career as going "from the trailer park to the New York Times bestseller list in zero to 60." She had been trying to sell her manuscripts since she was 21, and "was tired of being told that no one was interested in paranormal or really sexy books." So she turned to e-publishing. Her first book, "Adventures of the Teen Furies," was a young adult fantasy about a group of teenagers who were into gaming and their gaming personalities took over. It was published by e-book publisher Hard Shell Word Factory. "Little did I know," Davidson said, "that the New York publishers were keeping an eye on the e-books."
In 2003, Cindy Hwang, then senior editor for Berkley Books, read Davidson's novel "Undead and Unwed" online and called her, seeking to buy the print rights and offering her a three-book contract. It was, Davidson acknowledges, "like winning the lottery." The series, which has transitioned into hardcover, is about a secretary named Betsy Taylor who, in Davidson's words, "is turned into a vampire and fired on the same day. She has to find a new job and figure out where she is going to live. . . . You take a modern woman and give her fangs and a modified liquid diet." Under it all, she says, "there is a woman who has a family and friends and is coming to terms with the fact that she is going to outlive her family."
And the male hero? The vampires' Book of the Dead has prophesied that Betsy is to become queen to Eric Sinclair, king of the vampires, whom she doesn't like. So among the themes Davidson works with is "what do you do when you're stuck with a guy for a millennium and he's a jerk?"
"Some people write e-books as a step on the ladder to getting published by New York," says Davidson. "E-books are definitely the stepson of the industry. But for a lot of people, it isn't the means to an end, it is the end. What Cindy did by buying my rights legitimized the e-book industry. It's one reason why paranormal and super-erotica is hot now, and I think that e-books have a lot to do with that."
Kathryn Caskie was a former marketing executive in AOL's financial content area when she found her voice writing witty Regencys, a sub-genre of books set in the England of 1811-1820, the era of Jane Austen. The Waterford, Va., author had come close to getting a "Scottish Medieval" historical romance published when she had a brainstorm while watching trailers for the movie "Rules of Engagement." "What if two old ladies found a war manual and mistook it for a manual on how to get engaged?" That led to her own "Rules of Engagement," published by Warner Books' Warner Forever imprint. That was followed by another Regency, "Lady in Waiting," about a lady's maid who has a shopping addiction.
The Scottish Medieval historical, she says, remains in a drawer. "People don't want angsty Medievals from me, they want to have fun. That's my audience."
Helping readers find the books they will like remains the ultimate marketing challenge for publishers and booksellers. Davidson said she "deeply pities" the marketing group at Berkley because her vampire novels "are not a traditional book. Where are you going to go?" When the publisher labeled it a "romance," she said, "there are people who get annoyed that they found a good book in the romance section."
Another writer who wrestles with labels is Michelle Monkou of Laurel, a member of the RWA board of directors who holds a master's degree in international business in addition to her English degree. By day, Monkou writes as manager of legislative and regulatory information services for the American Council of Life Insurers. Last week, she was working off-hours to meet the deadline for her latest manuscript.
In 2000, Monkou decided it was time to get serious about her fiction-writing dreams and pitched a historical novel set in Spain during the Inquisition and featuring a heroine who was a Moor. The word she received was "we're not doing multiculturals," the industry buzzword, she explained, for books featuring African Americans. The market for historicals set in Spain, she was told, had also cooled.
So, instead, she explored the market for contemporaries. Her latest book, "Island Rendezvous," set in the Bahamas, was just released under Harlequin's Kimani Press-Arabesque imprint.
Monkou notes that in the African American sub-genre, "street fiction is the big thing, ghetto lit, urban lit . . . cautionary tales using gritty real-life examples. So instead of the hero being middle-income or a CEO, maybe the hero is an ex-drug dealer who is now trying to turn his life around and the street is calling him. It's definitely not the type of story that would have fit in the romance guidelines of yesteryear. These books are flying off the shelves with fairly young ages, which is kind of scary."
Monkou says the industry is "exciting and unpredictable because if you had put the intellectuals around the table, I don't think some of these imprints or stories would have been big." Bookstores, she said, will pick up some of the books when they can see that they're selling well. "Before, the bookstores wouldn't have touched some of these books at all."
At the same time that the definition of romance is broadening, so are the platforms and markets through which romance is being distributed. In addition to last week's cellphone-service announcement, Harlequin has announced deals to provide downloadable audio books through Audible.com and began selling novels for e-book readers. Company officials pointed with pride to the recent day when two novels in the Harlequin Presents line, one of the company's older imprints, topped sales of "The Da Vinci Code" on Ereader.com, a major outlet for books in that format.
Pam Laycock, Harlequin's executive vice president for strategy and new business development, sees the new platforms as a natural extension of the publisher's efforts to build a "special relationship" with its readers. The company is asking itself "what are the other ways that women -- as they become more and more busy, as they are multi-tasking -- can take quick breaks to enjoy themselves?"
Regarding the company's e-book sales, Laycock says that "on a relative basis, it's still very tiny within the Harlequin world." But, she says, the company has exceeded the targets it set for itself. This summer, she said, a Harlequin book will be part of the package when Sony's new e-reader platform is launched.
As part of the continuing quest for new readers, Harlequin in February released "In the Groove," the first racetrack-oriented title in its new partnership with NASCAR, and offered a sweepstakes to win a date with NASCAR driver Carl Edwards. Last month, competitor Dorchester Publishing announced it was teaming with Cupid.com to sponsor a series of speed-dating events in several cities, including Washington.
Harlequin has also begun translating novels that it successfully published in Japan in Manga, or graphic-novel, format, under a new Ginger Blossom line.
Reflecting on the changes that have occurred over her 32 years in the business, Kensington's Duffy agrees that the computer has made "a huge difference. . . . The whole technique of selling books is a lot more quantifiable. More people are held to account for a book's track record. In the old days, we used to blame the author; now we all share the blame."
But, she adds, "I like this game. You have to be smarter, you have to be quicker . . . and publishers have to give the reader something they can't get anywhere else. We're all about the next best thing and getting there first."
