The data does NOT exist to support the statement that romance is a billion dollar industry. Quite frankly, the data does not exist to make any sweeping statements about the size of the popular romance genre market.
So says Andrea Martucci of the Shelf Love podcast, who's been taking a hard look at the "popular romance genre market data between 1972 and today" and presented her "research on 'Bad Romance Data' at the 2023 International Association for the Study of Popular Romance conference." You can read her analysis and conclusions here (and it's archived here).
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Also via Andrea (but this time not by her), comes a call for participants:
Whether you're solely into humans or a monster romance enthusiast, I'd love for you to take part in my survey. I'm a graduate student doing my thesis on whether or not monster attraction could be explained through evolutionary anthropology.
The survey will be available from January 9, 2024, to March 12, 20204, and it will take about 20 to 30 minutes to complete (although some people have finished it in as little as 12 minutes). It's completely anonymous and only requires that you be at least 18 years old to participate.
Andrea spotted it on Reddit but there's also a more formal announcement giving details of the research on the Research Study Consent Form to be found at the website of California State University, Fullerton.
The research is being "carried out by Phoebe Santillan, under the guidance of Dr. Elizabeth Pillsworth" and
The purpose of this research study is to gather information on people who are attracted to fictional monsters. You are being asked to participate in this study because any and all data is valuable at this stage within the research process. Attraction to fictional monsters is not required to participate in this study.
Ooh, thanks for the link to the bad romance data info! I have always found those claims suspect, but haven't ever been moved to look more deeply into it. I'd absolutely love some reliable data on romance novels but ... struggling to imagine where it would come from, unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't realised the data was problematic until Andrea mentioned it, because this is not at all my area of expertise!
DeleteSome academics have apparently been working on/with library data (as described here, in a link Jodi McAlister shared on a different site) but that's got limitations. I just skim re-read the article and I think the data only came from one library in the example they gave? Or one library system. I should probably re-read it when it's not so late at night. But also, what people can borrow depends on what's available and libraries don't stock everything.
Also on another site Anne O'Reilly pointed out that "Overdrive has their most popular ebook and audiobook checkouts here: https://company.overdrive.com/2024/01/08/the-most-borrowed-ebooks-and-audiobooks-of-2023-is-your-favorite-on-the-list/. But that's not very detailed! And as Andrea says, the rise of ebooks and self-publishing has really changed a lot and I'm not sure if many/any of those authors are available through Overdrive. Personally, the romance selection seems a bit limited when I look at what's available from Overdrive via my library system. But maybe that's the result of choices made by the librarians here?
Anyway, as I said, this is definitely not my area of expertise so I'm just rambling at this point!