Y'all it's a dire timeline we currently find ourselves in and it's spilling over into Romancelandia. Word got out this week that Harlequin is killing the Harlequin Historical line. I follow longtime HH writers Terri Brisbin and Amanda McCabe on Facebook and they both posted the news - so that's good enough for me when it comes verify your sources. Terri's post has the most thorough information so I'll embed that below:
There have been rumors that Harlequin was going to kill the Historical for over a decade now, with things ramping up to a fever pitch when Harlequin was acquired by Harpercollins in 2014. Surely with the juggernaut that was Avon, Harpercollins would jettison Harlequin Historical. I mean why put up with red-headed stepchild HH when you got Julia Quinn, Lisa Kleypas and Eloisa James? Fast forward to 2026 and Avon has thrown all their weight behind contemporary romance with cartoon covers and the only historical on my radar is the upcoming Julie Anne Long, coming in June 2026 (with an illustrated cover, natch). Harlequin Historical hung on a lot longer than I think anyone gave them credit for, even as Harlequin bungled their way through the marketing of that line (legit, there was a stretch where they stopped distributing HH to physical retail spaces - like, you could not find an HH in a bookstore!)
I've been out in these Harlequin streets a long time but it's getting hard to love them. Look, I understand the economics of the situation. Inflation and rising costs - not to mention the economics of big box stores and our Evil Overlords at Amazon - have killed the mass market paperback format. Then you look at the fact that romance readers were the first to truly embrace digital reading, in droves, which I think also helped hasten the demise of mass market but also caught the industry by "surprise" and, having learned nothing from the music industry, they bungled their way through the transition to digital - which, honestly, they're still bungling. Digital gave rise to self-publishing, which gave rise to "cheaper books," which larger conglomerate publishers just cannot compete with because of overhead costs. A romance reader buying retail (and reading 100+ books every year) was going to take a flier on a 99 cent book, even if that traditional publisher priced their digital formats at a reasonable price point (and many of them didn't - how many times have we seen ebook editions that are more expensive than the print?). Compounding this? Publishers dug in their heels with libraries when it came to digital lending. Early on this wasn't an issue with Harlequin, who were REALLY friendly with library digital buying and borrowing until they were sold to Harpercollins (hello, metered access), but it's another reason why we're in the boat we're in folks.
Am I old and cranky? Yes. But it's my blog and I can crank all I want.
It's hard to stress what Harlequin Historical brought to Romancelandia but I've been single-handedly trying to remind y'all for years now. When Regency England wallpaper took over, you could still find some variety and history with Harlequin. They were the last historical publisher to abandon westerns (albeit they too eventually did), you could routinely find medievals there along with Vikings. Oh sure, they had Regencies, but they also had Victorians that read like actual Victorian era settings and not Regency 2.0: The Revenge. And then they'd slip in some off-the-beaten path gems, like Jeannie Lin's Tang Dynasty books or Michelle Styles' stories set in Ancient Rome.
I realize we have many more books to come until the line shuts down in 2027, and the backlist will live on for a long time (although backlist also has a shelf life...) but I'm vacillating between sadness and pure rage that this moment has come. I'm mad publishers keep fumbling their business so poorly. I'm mad at the state of the world we live in where nobody can or even wants to read a book anymore. I'm mad at the state of my chosen profession for continuing to stress that Libraries Are More Than Books while the world burns down all around us because NOBODY IS READING BOOKS ANYMORE AND WHY AREN'T WE ADDRESSING THAT AS A PROFESSION?! I'm mad at everyone who felt abandoned by historical romance and stopped reading it even though I understand why you feel that way. In general I'm just cranky and mad about all of it right now, even as my TBR can be seen from space.
So, what to do in the meantime? I need to spend more time focusing on my own Harlequin Historical pile and sharing that love. I also hope that you all go out and pick up an HH title that tickles your fancy - then talk it up to where ever it is you may talk books.
When I was a wee baby romance reader I remember how frustrated I would get with Old Lady Romance Readers lamenting the demise of the genre because of erotic romance, and now, as they say, the shoe just may be on the other foot. For I am lamenting the demise of the genre thanks to TikTok, publishers not knowing what the hell they're doing, and a world that has rendered most of us incapable of doing much outside of trudging through our daily existence hoping to keep our heads above water even as we all feel like slipping under. Books can be a life preserver in a lot of ways, but the market is narrowing and shrinking, at least in traditional publishing spaces, and it doesn't instill much hope. Can self-publishing save us? With so much of it grossly dependent on Amazon? Doubts, I have them.
Edited to add: Many thanks to Eurohackie for providing the link to the official Harlequin announcement. Also, they're reducing the number of Presents they publish every month which HOLY SH*T YOU GUYS!
7 comments:
I found the "official" Harlequin notice while I was working on my own blog post: https://authornetwork.harlequin.com/content?id=20127 They are also going to cut down on the number of Presents titles offered every month, so you *know* this shit is about to get real.
I can't see the FB post that you embedded, but I can only imagine. I am sad and angry - sad because HH is still a strong stable of authors, and angry because where are these authors gonna go now?? If everybody goes independent, how many of them are going to [be able to] offer paper versions of their books?
This version of romancelandia, beholden to social media, sucks.
Eurohackie: Oh! Thanks for the Harlequin press release. I'll tack that on to the end of my blog post. I double-checked Terri's FB post and she does have it set to "public" but if others have trouble seeing it I might need to rework it as a screen shot or something.
Also, everything you said in the second paragraph. I'm also concerned that if enough folks got digital-only they might decide to lock into the KU universe and yes, this version of Romancelandia blows.
I will never not be angry at publishing as a whole; between misogyny, white mediocrity and racism, they fucked their own cash cow until it now lies moribund--but that's okay, the old white fucks at the top still make millions hand over fist, who cares how many careers they kill (writers, editors, and everyone else in the industry). And they cozied up to Bezos because libraries serve the public, and offering your throat to the competition that wants to obliterate you was preferable to them than having the unwashed reading "for free". So they shot their own faces off, saving the leopard the trouble of eating them, and fucked us all over in the process.
In the end, once they finish Harlequin off entirely, they'll make sure we know it's our fault, and that there are good ~educational~ books for us, that won't "fill our heads" with nonsense about agency and rights, or with "unrealistic expectations" such as joy, physical and/or emotional.
AND!!! The prices they're charging for digital editions--and this is truly across the fucking board--are beyond ridiculous. Even two years ago, I see digital editions from trad publishers priced the same, or a few pennies over, paper editions--so you had 150 page novellas on sale for US$14, category length novels at anywhere from US$16 to $19, and anything over 300 pages starting at US$25. Considering that what you get is a license to read a file that retailers can delete from your digital reader (unless you are savvy and have the right kind of device, so you can use Calibre to get usable personal copies, and so on), a lot of people are absolutely tied to kindle unlimited (and likely also tied to a device, which mean they can't participate in less draconian programs, such as the Kobo one (sorry, can't remember what's called).
(I'll stop now)
AL: No need to stop - I mean, it's all so enraging, especially since publishers continue to make missteps and commit to decisions that I think most readers would tell them "Um, maybe that's not a great idea."
I'm not sure how romance can be more popular than ever and yet here we are with the offerings from traditional publishers narrowing (which if you had told me this 10 years ago I would have said they can get narrower?!). I do think self-publishing can and might be picking up some of this slack - the problem is we're stuck in the hellscape that is Amazon's algorithm with less-than-zero search functionality and discovery is absolute shit. Compounded by the fact that readers and hobbyist reviewers/bloggers you could once turn to by reading their reviews are leaving in droves because Google's algorithm has killed discoverability there and unique voices on social media platforms are getting drowned out by folks hyping Dark Romance stories that are Misogynist AF.
Gurl, I could go on for days.
Once Google decided that "don't be evil" wasn't making them enough money, things truly got dark everywhere (and boy, the internalized misogyny in a lot of the newer romance is terrifying--it's like reading BAD shit published in the late 1970s, with the same fucking red flags. Even smoking, because why the fuck not).
I'm holding on to the bloggers I know with both hands, but even them are either turning to other platforms (why why why why) or burned out ::gestures at everything::
Oh, like me, who hasn't posted the January TBR review yet, because the reading mojo is on the fritz again...
But hope it's the most stubborn bitch around, and so, here we still are.
How discouraging. HH are the only Harlequins I read. I've pretty much switched to Historical fiction, Thrillers, police procedurals and straight fiction because I can't finish most romance I try to read. But, I've been like this since 2019, which is why I rarely blog anymore. I keep "hoping" I'll get my mojo back, but real life hasn't been kind with my time. Wendy - I'm still out here and hopefully will get back on the blog train soon.
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