Portable formats' impact on romance fiction

POTOMAC, Md., Nov. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Glazed eyes...flushed cheeks...soulful sighs...Yes! It's someone enjoying a little romance. But on the subway?

Now that ebooks are migrating to portable devices like Amazon's Kindle and Sony's Digital Reader, romance is read on the go just about anywhere you have time to kill. Even Apple has turned its ubiquitous iPhone into a reader by offering books as Apps.

And romance fiction readers seem to love it.

MyRomanceStory, an imprint of Arrow Publications, reports a 40-percent increase in romance graphic novel App book sales from July to August, 2009, and a nearly 200- percent increase from August to October 2009, after Apple put into effect its parental controls ratings. Novels with mature romantic content have historically exhibited strong ebook sales. Now that they are portable this can only increase their reach to an audience that spends more and more time reading on portable platforms.

Indeed, ebooks of all genres are finally doing well. In-Stat, a Reed Elsevier Company, projects worldwide ebook sales of $323 million for 2009 and $9 billion by 2014.

But romance novels, the leader in book sales are reaping the ebook windfall. Romance Writers of America, one of the largest writers associations, reports that net sales of ebooks increased 68.4 percent in 2008. Malle Vallik, Director of Digital Content for giant romance publisher, Harlequin Enterprises, in a recent Publishers Weekly article maintained, "Our readers want ebooks...whatever sells in print, sells just as well in digital."

The global market is also expanding exponentially for ebook delivery on portable platforms. Harlequin is making its Manga (Japanese-style graphic novels) romances available for mobile distribution in China and Korea. MyRomanceStory, already publishing its graphic novels in English and Spanish, will expand into several other languages. "We're getting our Spanish novels up for the iPhone as fast as we can get them approved," states Pat White, CEO, Arrow Publications, "and we're on track for reaching the Far East market by mid 2010."

MyRomanceStory(TM).com is an imprint of Arrow Publications, LLC, the premier source for romance graphic novels. Find ebooks at www.myromancestory.com/eBooks/ , in the iTune App store with keywords "myromancestory" or "romance story" and in paperbacks from Amazon.com or MyRomanceStory.com. Retailers should contact Bakter and Taylor for paperback distribution.

SOURCE MyRomanceStory.com

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