Magicandotherthings t1_iyahcft wrote on November 29, 2022 at 11:17 PM

Reply to comment by untorches in What’s up with Goodreads recommendations? by kevsfamouschili

It's not that the industry pushes romance novels. It's that that's what people buy (https://www.markinblog.com/book-sales-statistics/; look at the subgenre section).

I get that that can be kind of circular -- for example, a new writer might decide to write romance because they think that's what they can sell -- but it's not like the industry has some kind of agenda here, other than making money.

Science fiction/fantasy makes barely a third of the money of romance and erotica, and crime/mystery makes just about half.

untorches t1_iyakzyq wrote on November 29, 2022 at 11:43 PM

You're right that it's kind of self-selecting where people buy what gets pushed, etc., but my point was that those other categories are too diluted to even be meaningfully distinguished in recent output. Saying "romance" outsold "romance with wizard stuff" and "romance but someone did a murder" doesn't feel like a very meaningful metric. I'm not saying it's nefarious, I'm saying it's mindless- it's admittedly the same pattern as other industries where any prominent success has companies shouting for their talent to "give us one of those" to diminishing returns instead of looking for the crest of the next wave. Even video games have it where genre titles are all but subsumed into triple-a mulch that does a bit of everything but not to any depth. Thanks for the link though, it's an interesting snippet.

Magicandotherthings t1_iyantij wrote on November 30, 2022 at 12:04 AM

I think you may be getting thrown by the article's admittedly weird use of the word "subgenre"? It's not talking about sales of romance v. romance with wizard stuff. It's referring to "romance" as one subgenre of fiction, "crime and mystery" as another, etc. It's not talking about subgenres of romance. For what it's worth, I think paranormal romance does sell pretty weird and would generally be classified under romance, not fantasy, though there are of course plenty of novels categorized as fantasy with incidental or even more-than-incidental romance.

I do agree that writers can get too caught up/agents and editors can get too caught up in finding work that's similar to what's popular now rather than what'll be popular in the next wave. But I don't think anyone knows what'll be popular in the future -- there may be some reason to believe that, e.g., sci fi/fantasy will increase in market share because I think it may be more popular with younger generations, but it's certainly far from guaranteed.

untorches t1_iyaqou4 wrote on November 30, 2022 at 12:25 AM

Thanks for the clarification, but no, I understood it as you describe- imo it's just that so little billed as fantasy, etc., ever actually is. Regarding future trends, I think so many editors, authors, publishers are content enough in a period of relative stagnation to not even be looking for what's next.