The sky is overcast and threatening rain as women pour into Romancing The Novel in Paddington, flooding the narrow bookstore until there’s barely room to move.
They’re all on a ‘book crawl’ and they’re all here for one thing: romance novels.
Romance has been the most commercially successful fiction genre for decades and is reaching new heights in the 2020s, according to Nielsen BookScan data.
More than twice as many romance novels were sold in 2024 compared to 2019 and Australians spent more than $50 million on the genre last year.
Romance has also been growing at an average annual rate of 49 per cent for the last three years, suggesting the figures could be even higher in 2025.
Annabel and Eliza, the organisers behind the Bound to Roam book crawl last weekend, made sure a romance store was their last stop for that very reason.
“All day our guests were saying they couldn’t wait to go to […] that they were saving their purchases for the female owned small business,” Annabel told 9news.
Romancing The Novel owner Scarlett Hopper, who is also a romance author, said she has BookTok (TikTok’s book community) to thank for the boom in business.
The rise of online communities like BookTok has lessened the stigma around romance fiction, which was once considered “taboo” and has been dismissed as frivolous and shallow for decades.
The stigma is largely rooted in misogyny, as romance is a genre predominantly written by and for women, but social media has shifted the narrative over the last five years.
“Romance has always had a place in the world, people just haven’t acknowledged it. Now I think women are taking back the power,” Hopper told 9news.
That’s reflected in her sales, which have been high ever since she opened her Paddington store in September 2024.
Some of her regulars travel hours just to visit the store each weekend and many spend hundreds of dollars each time they drop in.
“It shows how much books mean to people, especially women,” she said.
And Romancing The Novel is not the only store benefiting from the boom in romance book sales.
Caitlyn, owner of A Thousand Lives Book Haven in the Yarra Valley, told 9news that “people have been spending more and more on books” over the last 18 months.
She opened the indie romance bookstore in 2023 and cost of living pressures have forced her to raise prices recently, but customers have been happy to pay the difference.
Many of the 700-plus titles she stocks can be found cheaper online from major retailers like Amazon but Caitlyn says customers prefer buying from small businesses that offer an in-store experience.
“I think that hunger has always been there, we are just hearing more about it due to social media,” she said.
Many readers, including those on the Bound to Roam book crawl, are also seeking a sense of community which can only be found in physical spaces like a bookstore.
”Even in a cost of living crisis, people still crave joy, meaning, and a sense of escape,” Eliza told 9news, adding that buying a print book in-store can fulfil that need.
Many readers are also passionate about owning print copies of the books they love, some even purchasing multiple copies with different covers and bonus content.
In Bowral, Aussies are forking out up to $1000 in a single visit for special edition copies of their favourite novels at Books Ever After, run by romance author Kat T. Masen.
She realised the power of BookTok when her novel Chasing Love went viral and opened the store soon after in 2023.
Within a year, it had caught the attention of streaming giant Netflix.
“It was really my heavy presence on TikTok that pushed the store to the next level,” Masen told 9news.
Netflix invited her to be part of the festivities when hit series Bridgerton came to Bowral for its season three press tour in April last year, sparking a huge spike in sales and online interest for the small business.
One year on, she’s already planning to open a second location after proving with her first that “brick and mortar is still very much alive”.
Especially since the interest rate cuts in February, which Masen said sparked a spike in spending from her Australian customers.
Online sales from US customers have dipped due to US President Donald Trump’s tariffs but that just gives Masen more incentive to grow her business locally while the romance boom continues.
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Nielsen BookScan’s international book markets report showed that romance was one of the fiction genre with the strongest growth in 2024 and that’s expected to continue in 2025.
Physical bookshop purchases rose above pre-pandemic levels, with more than half of Nielsen BookScan’s tracked markets showing an increase in print book sales volume compared to 2023.
“For all of the people saying romance books are dead, my sales record proves otherwise,” Caitlyn said.
Meanwhile, romance readers are lapping it up and Annabel and Eliza have already locked in another book crawl in June with an even bigger turnout expected.
