BY TRISHA PING

Though romance has its critics, there's no denying that this genre has popularity to spare. According to the Romance Writers of America, romance novels account for 39.3 percent of fiction sold, the highest percentage of any genre (mysteries are second, with 29.6 percent; general fiction was a distant third with 12.9 percent). There's a hungry market out there—but what are they looking for? BookPage talked with romance editors and publishers to find out, and their answers were illuminating.

For the last couple of years, paranormal romance has been the trend in romance. Shauna Summers, a Bantam Dell editor who works with Karen Marie Moning, among others, has signed two paranormal authors since last July. "I think readers who used to think they didn't like fantasy or science fiction are discovering and loving stories with paranormal elements," she says.

Most of the editors we spoke with agreed that the subgenre was still growing, but advised caution. "I love to read paranormals, and yes, I am looking to acquire more," says Erika Tsang, an editor at Avon who works with Jacquie D'Alessandro and Suzanne Enoch. "It seems, though, that everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon and write one. Some of them are successful, some not." Dianne Moggy, editorial director for Harlequin, says they are "being particularly selective" when it comes to paranormals, as is Summers. Still, some editors believe that paranormal romance has plenty of room to grow. "Vampires are the tip of the iceberg for paranormals," says Kate Duffy, an editorial director at Kensington Publishing Corporation who counts MaryJanice Davidson among her authors. "Wait until you see what we are publishing in 2006." Even if paranormal romance has peaked, it seems to be here to stay.

The next big thing

One constant in romance, says Leslie Burbank, vice president of Chicago-based Medallion Press, is change. "You absolutely cannot continue to sell the kind of romance your mother read." So, what does this mean for the future? Burbank predicts that romance's boundaries will become more fluid, including books "dealing with real-life issues, and not just on getting the guy . . . older heroines, more realistic body types." She also believes Westerns are poised for a comeback. Others mentioned 20th-century historicals as an area of increasing interest. Duffy is working on a "super" 20th-century project, though she wouldn't share the details, and Moggy said that MIRA has recently started looking for books set during that time and will publish two this year, one set in the '60s and the other during World War II.

Two subgenres were almost universally labeled as getting hotter every day, and they probably aren't drawing from the same fan base. "Erotica and inspirational fiction have seen a significant jump in sales," says Tsang. Moggy tells us that Harlequin will launch a new erotic fiction line, Spice, in May, which will publish authors like M.J. Rose and Suzanne Forster. (The company already has an inspirational imprint, Steeple Hill.)

Does this mean an aspiring novelist should quit working on her Renaissance-era romance and start writing erotica? "Time periods that are obscure or particularly unromantic can be a hard sell, but it's all about the writing," says Summers. That's the one thing that everyone agreed on: don't write about something just because it's trendy. "Just because you follow a trend doesn't mean you'll end up with a bestseller," Burbank explains. Or, as Tsang puts it, "Trends come and go, but a memorable book will stay with you." Both writers and readers can vouch for that.