'New romance,' a growing literary genre and gold mine for publishers

The literary niche, targetting an almost exclusively female audience, saw its sales double last year. Publishers are trying to carve out their slice of the pie.

Peppered with erotic scenes, these romantic tales where an innocent girl falls for a man who is often crazy and sometimes violent but where everything ends well, have the primary advantage of boosting French publishing figures. According to the latest GFK NielsenIQ study, this literary genre, known as "new adult romance", accounted for 1.8% of books sold in 2023, or 6 million copies – and generated €75 million in revenue.

After a decline between 2015 and 2020, the segment is now thriving, having more than doubled compared to 2022. The selection is expanding and appealing to its audience – both adult women and teenage girls. One striking aspect of the study is that the market is heavily concentrated on the top 100 bestselling titles.

So much so that five authors – French novelists C.S. Quill, Emma Green (a pseudonym for a writing duo), Morgane Moncomble, Algerian writer Sarah Rivens and US author Colleen Hoover – who all have huge social media fan bases – can flaunt sales of between 200,000 and over a million copies of each of their books. The film It Ends With Us, adapted from Hoover's book of the same name and released in cinemas on August 14, should further boost sales of this bestseller.

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