1U.S. ROMANCE MARKET SNAPSHOT 2016 Copyright © 2016 The Nielsen Company

U.S. ROMANCE MARKET SNAPSHOT2016

2 U.S. ROMANCE MARKET SNAPSHOT 2016

Dear Romance Friends,

Welcome to the inaugural 2016 Nielsen Romance Book Summit! Romance is one of our favorite areas of publishing.

There is no other part of our business that combines such a passionate

community of readers and writers with some of the most interesting and

dynamic market forces at play in publishing today.

For many years, Romance has been looked down upon by the rest of the

Publishing market—the feather-headed little sister, not very practical,

full of fantasy and day dreams, and definitely not ready for serious

consideration.

But in our experience, being marginalized has done something

amazing for the Romance—it has created an entire sector that is more

entrepreneurial, more experimental, and generally more independent

than just about any other genre.

Romance has embraced new technologies, new production platforms,

new channels of distribution, and new economics, and is blazing the

way for the rest of us.

Feather-headed, indeed!

Of course, with all dynamic evolution there comes new questions to be

asked, new challenges to tackle, and new solutions to be invented. That

is why we created this event, and we are so glad you are here to be a part

of the conversation.

Kat Meyer & Kristen McLean Conference co-chairs

3U.S. ROMANCE MARKET SNAPSHOT 2016 Copyright © 2016 The Nielsen Company

DATA SOURCES USEDBOOKS & CONSUMER MONTHLY TRACKER

Print vs eBook trends, Sales Channels, Demographics of the Romance

genre. Books & Consumers tracks 72,000 unique book buyers making

150,000 unique book purchases a year. Each purchase is ISBN verified,

then a wide variety of data is collected about the purchase and the buyer,

including demographics, details of purchase, price paid, and factors

affecting the purchase such as location, packaging, discovery, and

consumer attitudes and preferences.

BOOKSCAN

Romance, Volume Trends/CAGR, Category Growth, Market Position.

BookScan tracks the top 80% of the US Trade marketplace, and includes

print sales from all major retailers including Barnes & Noble, Amazon,

the ABA Indie Stores, Target, Walmart, Costco, Sam’s, and more,

reported on a weekly basis.

PUBTRACK DIGITAL

Romance eBook Volume, eBook Bestsellers, Publisher eMarketshare,

Author eMarketshare, based on direct reporting from the top 30 US

publishers. PubTrack Digital does not include data on self-published

titles sold only through channels such as Amazon, where market-wide

data is unavailable.

4 U.S. ROMANCE MARKET SNAPSHOT 2016

INTRODUCTIONThere is no area in publishing today more transformed by Digital than

Romance. For the Romance Reader -- eBooks, social media, and an

explosion of great content have made it easier than ever to enjoy reading

what you want, when you want, and at a range of prices that make even

the most voracious Romance habit affordable.

At the same time, those who make their living off Romance—publishers,

authors, and agents—are facing some big challenges as we struggle

for discovery in a saturated landscape, wrestle with the complexities

of diversity in an evolving market, and work to make Romance pay in a

pricing climate that seems like “a race to zero”.

As a company who is in the business of creating meaningful market

analysis out of the sea of data generated by publishers, retailers, and

consumers across the globe, the Romance market presents Nielsen with

a unique challenge.

No other segment of book publishing has taken advantage of the Digital

Age to the degree Romance has—our estimates place eBook buying at

57% of total reading in Romance, by far the highest category for eBooks

across the industry. The only problem is that it is difficult to get a view

into the full scope of what is going on using standard POS strategies.

One reason is that—unlike on the print side—eBook retailers do

not make their sales data readily available beyond the reporting they

provide back to each individual publisher or self-published author. No

one besides those retailers knows every unit flowing out across their

platforms, and at what price.

Secondly, more than any other genre, Romance has demonstrated

that it is possible for authors to really make a go of the self-publishing

business. This is a fantastic innovation for creators, and a testament to

the entrepreneurial spirit of the Romance category generally. However,

aggregating the data from the millions of self-published authors is a

challenge.

5U.S. ROMANCE MARKET SNAPSHOT 2016 Copyright © 2016 The Nielsen Company

Traditional POS measurement tools don’t work in these situations,

but we do have a way to find out what is going on—we can ask book

consumers directly.

Through our Books & Consumers research, we have been able to track

the trends in this area since 2010 by surveying 72,000 unique book

buyers about more than 150,000 book purchases a year—what they

bought, where they bought, and how they read. When combined with

our print sales data, we are able to get a good sense of what is driving

Romance.

We hope you enjoy this 2016 Nielsen Romance Market Snapshot—feel

free to share with us any questions or comments you may have.