Most Popular Genres
In my all-encompassing inquiry (type "most popular genre" in the search engine box, hit the "return" key, read the first two or three links), I have "discovered" that the most popular genres in the US seem to be, in no particular order: romance, crime/mystery/thrillers/suspense, self-help, how-to, and memoirs.
It's telling that bookstore owners and employees point out that romance books are the "biggest sellers out there as a genre".
Mysteries and thrillers dominate the secondary market (used books), which, to use the words of the poster, "fans don't like them enough to hang on to them."
An agent writes on her blog that memoirs are the most popular genre at any writing conference, and that it takes something special to stand out.
Following gut-feel--since I don't have access to bookstore sales--I'm guessing that among local books, humour, travel, and cookbooks would be the top genres. Oh, and yes, romance too.
It's telling that bookstore owners and employees point out that romance books are the "biggest sellers out there as a genre".
Mysteries and thrillers dominate the secondary market (used books), which, to use the words of the poster, "fans don't like them enough to hang on to them."
An agent writes on her blog that memoirs are the most popular genre at any writing conference, and that it takes something special to stand out.
Following gut-feel--since I don't have access to bookstore sales--I'm guessing that among local books, humour, travel, and cookbooks would be the top genres. Oh, and yes, romance too.
posted by pgenrestories at 1:33 PM
3 Comments:
The most popular genre in the Philippines is...textbooks. That's according to an NBDB presentation anyway (50,000 to 80,000 per title.) What? Not a genre? Oh, okay. I guess I was thinking of the occasional unintentional deviations into fantasy and science fiction that local textbooks sometimes take.
Next to that: romance pocketbooks (20,000 copies per title sold every month.)
Those figures are from an NBDB presentation: http://www.accu.or.jp/appreb/02/02-02/02-02country/pdf/pt_phi.pdf
From an article by Queena Lee-Chua (reprinted here): According to the 2007 National Book Development Board (NBDB) Readership Survey, 67 percent of respondents across the country read the Bible the most, followed by romance or love novels (33 percent), cookbooks (28 percent), comic books (26 percent) and religious or inspirational works (20 percent).
Aha! So my hunches were more or less right. Thanks for backing me up with some stats, Dominique!
He he, does that mean we're going to see a PGS: Romance Special soon?
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