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The fastest growing genre of contemporary literature in Russia is the romance novel
Sales of domestic romance novels to grow by 40% in 2024
After all, 70% of the romance novel audience is women. What is the reason for such popularity and is there a way for the genre to maintain and expand it?
Sales of Russian romance novels in physical terms increased by almost 40%. This genre became the fastest-growing genre of fiction in the first nine months of 2024. This is reported by RBC, citing statistics from the Chitai-City network.
The impetus for growth was provided by books by Anna Jane, Asya Lavrinovich and Anya Sherry. Sentimental prose is especially popular among women, who make up 70% of the readership. Participants in the book market explain this by the mass supply of books and the audience's desire to escape from reality.
Ekaterina Pisareva, editor-in-chief of the Liters group, says:
— Sentimental love prose really helps to get rid of negative thoughts, it is pure book escapism. But there is another important factor. The growth of love stories is explained by the fact that we have a huge number of offers. This is because Samizdat is developing well here, and you can see many books written by digital authors. Our top sellers include Marie Moore, Tori Myron and Anna Dar, whose books our users actively read and buy. — How are things with other genres of novels, such as detectives and fantasy? — Decent. Fantasy, science fiction and detectives continue to gain popularity among users, as does the category of military fiction. If we predict how the book market will change in the future, I think love stories will not be a threat and will continue to remain at the top. In other words, we may see the emergence of stories that cross genres rather than pure romance novels, and romance books may use AI or have an AI protagonist.
Romance novels are also among the fastest-growing genres of fiction, according to Eksmo Publishing House. The best-selling book in this category was Colleen Hoover's It Ends with Us.
The general director of the publishing house "Eksmo-AST" Evgeny Kapyev is primarily associated with the increase in the frequency of divorces in our country.
Nowadays, you can find romantic fiction for almost any taste. People are no longer embarrassed to read novels and share their impressions of what they have read on social networks. Word of mouth increases sales, says Nadezhda Smetova, author and book blogger of the Telegram channel “Intellectual Gadova”.
— Romance novels are interesting because everyone can find them for themselves. I want a novel about a 40-year-old accountant at a company that sells sofas and a 40-year-old woman who works as an accountant at a company that sells sofas. And people find such novels themselves. — So why does the Read the City network claim that romance novels, Russian romance novels, have become the fastest-growing genre? “Perhaps it is partly because the genre has been legitimized as a shameless genre. It now seems less awkward and awkward to talk about. Yes, I read romance novels. Yes, I have a closet full of Asya Lavrinovich and Anna Jane. Yes, I am interested in them. It is a completely logical trend. Many young girls read Asya Lavrinovich, and this is normal, it is about love, relationships. On the one hand, it is an eternal theme and perhaps it is inappropriate here to evaluate how much it meets high standards. It's good when people read a book and then can read Flaubert, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, anyone.
According to Read-City, the second-largest seller is Russian science fiction, which has grown by 22% over the past nine months compared to the same period last year. Third place went to foreign detectives, which added 13%. Psychology books took fourth place, adding 11%.