The Business of Love Face it, love is big business. The promise of love sells everything from instant coffee to the tooth whiteners needed to remove the stains from the coffee you bought because of all those romantic commercials.
Love also sells books.
Romance accounts for around 50 percent of all fiction sold. Romance queen Nora Roberts boasts over 85 million books in print. Anne McCaffrey, who occupies a similar position in the world of science fiction and fantasy, can call only 18 million books her own. And you can't explain the difference entirely in terms of output. Similarly, you can't blame the size of the romance market on a shadow nation of professionally unfulfilled housewives located exactly 53 miles west of Peoria.