Sponsor
Portland State University. Department of English
Document Type
Paper
Publication Date
Spring 2026
Subjects
Book Publishing, Romance fiction, Publishers and Publishing
Abstract
It’s no secret that queer romance is seeing an unprecedented increase in popularity. Despite making up only four percent of romance books sold in print in 2021, traditional retail outlets sold roughly 850,000 queer romance books that same year. This number is more than twice what was sold the previous year and shows a 740 percent increase from five 1 years prior. From May 2022 to May 2023, queer romance sales grew by forty percent—the 2 largest increase in any genre by more than double. Queer fiction as a whole is seeing a 3 surge in popularity, with sales in 2023 up 200 percent from 2019. But it hasn’t always been this way.
Rights
© 2026 Ash Duggirala
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/45215
Recommended Citation
Duggirala, Ash, "More Than Just Survival Literature: The Influence of Midcentury Lesbian Pulp Fiction on Contemporary Romance" (2026). Book Publishing Final Research Papers. 92.
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/45215
Description
Paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Writing: Book Publishing.