Nov
09
2006
While Harlequin may be down, its European counterpart is booming.
Net units sold by HM&B as a whole increased 170,000 to almost 2.4 million over the first three quarters of this year, while the value of net units sold rose more than £500,000 to almost £8m. Although it is hard to quantify the total romantic fiction market, since publishers categorize their titles differently, Book Marketing Ltd’s Books and the Consumer 2006 report estimates that consumers purchased five million romantic fiction titles in the 52 weeks ending September 17, with a value of £21.3m.
I’ve heard that UK sets the trends for many romance books in the US and that historical sales are up in the UK. Hope that means good things ahead for the US historical market.
It would be interesting to know what the market share is in the UK. Unfortunately, I can never find those kind of specific stats.