I've been noticing a trend in the current book market and I'd love to hear other readers' perspectives. Romantasy and "spicy romance" have exploded in popularity, and while there's nothing wrong with erotic content, I'm seeing more and more titles with very loose structure, weak worldbuilding, or rough prose becoming bestsellers because of their explicit elements, while craft-heavy fiction struggles to get comparable visibility unless it also leans into smut. It feels like the market increasingly rewards quick dopamine hits over narrative quality, possibly as a side effect of TikTok-driven publishing.
One thing that stands out is the labeling problem. A lot of heavily explicit books are shelved or marketed simply as romance or fantasy romance, without any clear indication of explicit content. This means readers, especially younger ones, can easily stumble into material that's far more graphic than expected. I'm not blaming the genres or the readers; I'm more curious whether the lack of precise labels (or the deliberate vagueness of them) is a marketing strategy that ends up distorting expectations in bookstores and libraries. Should the industry revisit how it categorizes romantasy and spice-forward fiction, the same way we distinguish YA from NA or horror from thriller?
Another angle I'm curious about: reading today seems to be a heavily female-coded hobby. Most fiction buyers, BookTok creators and romantasy communities are women and that inevitably influences the market. But I'm wondering about the impact on male readers: if the industry heavily follows the demand for romantasy and spice-forward fiction, does this discourage male audiences? Does it affect what publishers acquire, what gets marketed, or what bookstores display? Or are these simply parallel lanes that don't interfere with each other?
And then there's the writing side: it also feels like authorship has become more female-coded in mainstream fiction, not in a negative way, just as an observable demographic shift. Most of the new releases I see in bookstores are by women, and a large share of those authors publish romance, romantasy or romance-adjacent fantasy. This might be partly due to the fact that women have historically been more inclined to write (and read) fanfiction from a young age. And fanfiction itself has shaped entire commercial genres: Fifty Shades, Twilight, After, The Love Hypothesis, Alchemized, and many others began as fanfic before becoming massive publishing phenomena, It's fascinting, but it also raises questions about how much this pipeline influences the tone and priorities of today's mainstream fiction.
I'm not judging genres or readers, as everyone should read whatever they enjoy. I'm more interested in the broader ecosystem, so
TL;DR:
Is the romantasy boom crowding out non-spicy, craft-focused fiction?
Are vague labels and marketing trends reshaping expectations for entire genres?
Does the demographic shift in readership and authorship change what actually get published?
Or is all of this just an overreaction to a trend that looks massive because of social media?
Would love to hear thoughtful perspectives from both readers and writers.
by Anacarnil
6 Comments
I doubt it. Isn’t it mostly women reading those?
Not any more than the old Harlequin Romance books did.
If smut is a reader’s jam, they almost certainly weren’t going to read heavy thought-provoking literature if the smut didn’t exist.
If well-written fiction is on the decline (and that’s an if), it’s because fewer prose-minded readers are engaging with it. I could be wrong, but I doubt porn-as-novels are stealing that audience.
Reading for enjoyment has been heavily female for a while, so I am not sure that’s a big change. I do think there’s something there with the market influence of romantasy though – it seems like it has a larger influence on the overall publishing market than things like romance paperbacks did in the past. I would want to see some sort of actual data to say for sure! I certainly FEEL like I’m seeing an influence in the quality of books that get published.
“Spicy romance” has not “exploded in popularity”. They’ve always been popular. Very popular. Super popular. Probably the most popular genre. The only difference is that more readers are not ashamed of them and openly talk about them. Publishers have realized this so instead of them being printed as mass market paperback sold in grocery stores for $5 they are now front and center at B&N going for $20.
What do you consider spice forward fiction? I’ve come to realize that most people think spice when there’s like, maybe one or two sex scenes. Look at ACOTAR, pretty much the biggest name in romantasy fiction. It’s constantly referred to as fairy smut when its actually pretty tame. Game of Thrones had more sex scenes that this series does.
So do we start shelving all books with on page sex separate from the rest of the catalogue? Where’s the line? One scene? Two?