Page Passion > Status Update

Blame it on the books. That’s what I’ve been doing all year. 🙄

This past month has been hard to finish anything. I have to take a break 🤷🏽‍♀️

I'm with Sarah, it's the books. Very few books recently have caught my attention, going to older books of my favorite authors and rereads.

I hear that, Esther. Post-pandemic I’ve added fewer new releases to Wishlist than ever before. It’s not just romance, either—it’s across all the genres I pick up. There’s just so much crap being churned out & even when something sounds good, it almost always ends up underwhelming. But have you guys noticed how many GRers are complaining about book slumps this year? I wonder if we’ve finally reached a tipping point.

Sarah is right. Slumps across genres. I’m on twitter and threads and everyone mentions how mass market historical romance is pretty much dead. Harlequin has hits and misses post 2020. We really are at the tipping point.

It’s really sad how dead mass market HR is now. What an inglorious end to a once proud genre. 😢 And Harlequin needs to shape up, otherwise they’ll be out of business too. At this point you gotta believe it’s only their longtime popular authors keeping them afloat…?

You’d think publishers would take the hint, what with so many simultaneous slumps & much griping & retreating into rereads. 🙄

I saw someone mention “fast fiction”instead fast fashion and that’s a great descriptor. It will be interesting to see how publishers turn this around (if at all).

Sarah Mac wrote: "I hear that, Esther. Post-pandemic I’ve added fewer new releases to Wishlist than ever before. It’s not just romance, either—it’s across all the genres I pick up. There’s just so much crap being ch..."

It is across all genres Sarah, I totally agree. I am so puzzled and frustrated with the substance and writing of some of these books. Where are the editors???

Page wrote: "Sarah is right. Slumps across genres. I’m on twitter and threads and everyone mentions how mass market historical romance is pretty much dead. Harlequin has hits and misses post 2020. We really are..."

Page, Historical Romance the way it use to be is gone. What happened??? Partly what I see is they have modernized this genre so it not even historical really.

I thought it was a few of us that maybe felt this way but it's reassuring, kinda, that there are more out there that feel the same.

And oh I so hope publishers, or someone, can turn this around.

@Sarah Mac And don't get me started on Harlequin books. I use to read at least six a month, now I am lucky if I find two. It's those faithful authors that produce romances with some traditional substance that I am loyal too and give my $$.

They better do something or like you stated they will be out of business as well....

I have a KU subscription or I read library books. I’m over spending money when they churn out bland books.

Page wrote: "I have a KU subscription or I read library books. I’m over spending money when they churn out bland books."

I need to do more Library books. I do have KU.

@Esther - Agreed. It’s gotten so bad that I auto-ignore almost any new releases that aren’t on my approved author list. 🙄 I don’t buy every book even by the authors I like, but I’m done wasting money on the tired tripe HP is pushing. And they just raised the price on their dead tree books yet again! The solution isn’t charging more money, guys—it’s hiring better authors who write stories with some zip that your LONG TIME READERS want to read! They’re chasing an audience that isn’t interested in them no matter what they put out & abandoning their loyal fans in the process. Well, congrats…soon they won’t have to worry about any fans at all. 😑

@Page - ‘Fast fiction’ is exactly it. I think publishers really underestimated the silent majority of readers who read HR for the Historical factor; now the genre is floundering & can’t be revived without some serious dedication on their part, which they seem unwilling to give. Hopefully enough people will start griping on twitter & tiktok—that seems to be the only feedback publishers care about anymore. 🙄

I mostly lurk on TikTok but I should get on and say bring back the history in Historical romance. And no cartoon covers for adult books, I beg!

Cartoon covers are the worst. We can hate them together, lol. 😑

@Sarah Mac

Boy they sure are chasing away their faithful readers, they better get a grip on what is happening. The "politically" correct stories and some of the male characters are going to sink the Presents line. Don't they have other series and lines for those kinds of books. Just stick with what was working and what loyal fans expect. They keep this up and there won't be anyone buying HP.

Didn’t they already have to nix/cut way back on the Desire line? If people want soppy beta heroes, fine—there are plenty of them out there. But HP readers don’t want soppy betas. We want alphas (cruelty level can vary 😈) & soapy shenanigans & ffs we want more going on than repetitive dual interior monologues. 🙄 And it would help if plot variety became a thing again. *fail horn* I swear, nobody’s even trying to make them different anymore except CC & Millie & a couple others. 99% of the royalty stories are all the same—ditto with the ONS pregnancy. And yet they wonder why sales are down. Hmm.

Dark romance is gaining popularity because those heroes are what Presents alphas used to be.

No doubt. :/ Have you guys seen the new HP cover template? It’s awful—all black background with this spiral light vortex & they’re not even using the circular edge anymore. It looks cheap & tacky & non-representative of what HP is (or used to be 🙄). Why couldn’t they just stick with the larger circular image they started using not long ago?

Yes! The black is terrible. We don’t even get vague Greek/Italian/tropical backgrounds anymore

Page wrote: "Dark romance is gaining popularity because those heroes are what Presents alphas used to be."

I haven't heard that, but boy I can see that happening. We don't seem to have many alpha males in our MC anymore. Sad.

@Page and Sarah Mac
I am also in agreement that the new HP covers are horrible. The black background does nothing but give it a sci-fi vibe in my opinion.
I think it was CC or someone on Facebook that asked what the readers thought, I flat out said I didn't like it and it was very unappealing.

To me it screams “too cheap to pay the art department to photoshop generic beach/yacht/estate/tropical backdrops.” 🙄 The other lines get backgrounds! Why are they taking them from their supposed flagship line? (Haha, it does look like a bad time warp romance or something.)

Also: this is super nitpicky, but the font they’re using for the author names is overly-cutesy & low budget looking (again).

Yes! The font looks like they are using canva which is what literally anyone can log in and use. Doesn’t scream 75 year publisher

Then you compare it to the huge dull block font of the title & cringe again. 🙄

I feel like HP powers-that-be should be reading this thread & learning from us, lol.