Intro: Similarity by Happenstance

Can you claim plagiarism in a genre that thrives on familiarity? A 2022 lawsuit put this contradiction to the test, forcing courts to define the boundaries of unlawful copying within modern romance literature.

The case centered on an Anchorage author who filed a copyright-infringement lawsuit against best-selling writer Tracy Wolff, whose Crave series has sold more than 3.5M copies. The complaint pointed to a shared Alaskan setting, a supernatural heroine with identical powers, multiple overlapping plot elements, and the plaintiff’s unpublished manuscript being shared with Wolff’s publisher — details that, at first glance, make the case read like a textbook example of plagiarism.

And here is where things get wacky: the defense argued that the novels’ resemblance was not evidence of copying but of coincidence, an inevitable byproduct of a commercially oversaturated genre built around a narrow set of well-worn tropes. Wolff’s attorneys asserted that in a crowded market, two independently written romance novels can (and did) arrive at similar stories precisely because the genre rewards predictability.

As of this writing, the lawsuit is headed for trial, marking a strange inflection point for the publishing industry, which is increasingly reliant on romance’s explosive growth.

Once considered niche, romance novels now account for roughly 20% of annual book sales, with their influence no longer confined to book clubs and die-hard Austenites (a nickname for Jane Austen fans). In recent years, the genre has spilled into mainstream culture, fueling a steady pipeline of streaming and big screen adaptations (Red, White & Royal Blue, Heated Rivalry, It Ends With Us, and beyond).

So today, we’ll explore the rise of romance novels, how the genre is reshaping the publishing industry and the word “smut,” and why the genre’s grip on popular culture is stronger than ever.

How Romance, Romantasy, and “Smut” Took Over Publishing — and Hollywood

A new bookstore opened down the street from my house a few months ago. Eager to support a local business, I wandered in and began scanning the shelves. After two minutes of unfamiliarity with the store’s titles — many of them romance or romantasy — I asked the clerk where I might find a copy of [insert the name of a well-known cerebral novel I will never read, for now let’s just say it was The Sun Also Rises]. To which the store manager responded, “We don’t do that.” She then launched into a well-choreographed — and clearly oft-delivered — explanation of the store’s schtick. Their inventory, she explained, was driven by influencer recommendations and community-centric book clubs.

Even today, I don’t understand how this place pays its rent. My fundamental confusion is not the store’s focus on community — which, as best I could tell, skewed female — but that a bookshop could afford to be niche in this day and age. Can a bookstore thrive while selling a narrow subset of contemporary favorites? The answer is yes — provided that subset includes romance.

The genre has exploded in the post-pandemic era, propelled by TikTok’s #BookTok community. In print alone, romance novels have more than doubled their sales over the past five years — an outcome roughly equivalent to DVDs staging a cultural comeback.