Today’s newsletter is a bit of a change of pace, a guest article from Kris Longfield of Fanthropology on the romantasy genre, a genre I’ve had my eye on for a while. Full disclosure: I’ve done some consulting work with Kris. As she says at the end, she’s running a seminar on Romantasy later this morning, 11:00 AM PST on 5-Feb, with replays available after. Check it out!
You may or may not have heard by now that the biggest book in the country, launched a few weeks ago, sold 2.7 million copies its first week. You might be surprised to learn that there were 1,100 midnight release parties, including a sold-out one at the Barnes & Noble store at the Grove in LA. Not only is Onyx Storm at the top of the NY Time’s Bestseller list, but the two books in the series preceding it, Fourth Wing and Iron Flame, are #2 and #3.
Why aren’t people talking about The Empyrean series? Well, they are. According to social listening tool Infegy, there were 691k online mentions of the word “romantasy” in 2024 alone. But most people aren’t hearing about it because its community is mostly algorithmically driven and on popular book review site, Goodreads.
Welcome to the emerging, extraordinarily popular world of romantasy.
A portmanteau of romance and fantasy, romantasy is a new literary mashup where a romance that takes place in a fantasy world. While the fantasy world-building drives action and plot, the romance, which for some books is as explicit as a typical romance novel, is the primary draw.
One of the interesting facets of book publishing is that while Prince Harry’s biography and the latest James Patterson or Stephen King novel may get the lion’s share of attention, the workhorse genre in publishing, generating a huge amount of money, is romance, with the genre selling 19 million books in 2022, prior to the romantasy boom, and historically accounting for between 18-23% of all book sales. The romance genre has done so well that some entrepreneurs have opened up bookstores dedicated to this genre, with 20 new romance stores opening in 2024.
The juggernaut that is romantasy started out driven by #Booktok and #Bookstagram influencers with a preference for female main characters, romance, and detailed world-building. The earliest books now considered to be part of the genre date to 2012, but the description as “romantasy” didn’t take off until 2023, when sales hit $454,000,000. Last year was projected as $610,000,000. …and in 2025, interest shows no sign of stopping.
Who’s buying? The same fans that powered Harry Potter, Twilight, and The Hunger Games franchises to success. YA fans grew up and decided that they wanted protagonists in their 20s, and some “spice” in their fantasy stories. Without that context, it’s easy to dismiss romantasy as being merely the latest fad, rather than something that should be a major priority in courting Gen Z audiences.
One of the unusual aspects of the genre is that it seems to have come from nowhere overnight, as if millions of people suddenly decided they had a secret desire for a combination of romance and fantasy. But that’s not true. For one thing, fantasy romance has been popular for decades, but it isn’t quite the same thing as romantasy.
Instead, this is an audience that’s been incubated for almost two decades within the realm of fanfiction. The last major YA film series, Divergent, petered out, with box office for its third film dropping 42% from the 2nd. But demand for stories with characters like those found in Harry Potter, Twilight, and The Hunger Games has been going strong. Even the controversial kiss at the end of Star Wars: The Last Skywalker, has driven a huge, underground demand for stories featuring character relationships similar to Kylo Ren & Rey (called Reylo). In the absence of new films or shows featuring these characters—or characters like them—fans have turned to fan fiction to fill the void.
The emerging genre conventions of romantasy put the romance, and romance tropes, at the center of the story, making them easy crossover reads from romance. They also tend to lean into a style of writing that is recognizably akin to YA. This makes them breezy, easy-to-read stories with substantial appeal to the YA audience, but aged up, with characters that are often in their 20s, putting them into the category that publishers call “New Adult.” This not only provides appeal for the now-much-older YA audience, but allows them to access the “spicy” elements of romance fiction that has historically driven its appeal. Add on to this mixture substantial fantasy worldbuilding that provides dramatic plot development & unique story DNA, which creates appeal for fantasy readers, and it’s now at the center of 3 different genres, all of which combine to drive many good (and sometimes bad) novels to success.
Whither Hollywood and Romantasy?
Hollywood has tried to tap into the fan fiction space before, with 50 Shades of Grey notoriously based on Twilight (originally written as a fan fiction called Masters of the Universe). Less notoriously, Cassandra Clare’s The Mortal Instruments series was originally fanfiction based on Harry Potter, and After got its start on Wattpad as One Direction RPF(real person fiction). Other bestselling novels that began as fan fiction are The Love Hypothesis and The Hurricane Wars.
But none of these had anything like the massive success of their originators. Romantasy appears to have changed the calculation. Credit where credit is due, Hollywood hopped on board early with what would eventually become the romantasy train in 2015, when A Court of Thorns and Roses was first optioned (and a dozen others have been optioned since).
But nothing’s made it to screen yet. (Though Amazon Prime Video’s My Lady Jane was close enough that romantasy fans have been recommending it since they discovered it, too late to save it from cancellation.) and instead, there’s been dozens of Hallmark-style low budget Christmas romances, rather than prioritizing a massive audience that is currently spending a lot of money and time on books and fan-made merchandise. and while part of that is due to both A Court of Thorns and Roses and Fourth Wing paving the way, there’s also some key facets of the genre that set books up for independent success.
So What?
Hollywood needs to prioritize not only optioning Romantasy, but getting it into production. These stories are huge events that could benefit the entertainment industry as a whole. They aren’t just individual books, they’re potential franchises with a level of world building that drives massive merchandising and theme parks.
Talent should be actively looking to attach to these projects, because that level of energy can drive a whole career (just ask Kristen Stewart or Robert Pattison). These are also great books for writers and directors to option independently; some great ones are from smaller publishing houses or are self-published.
Finally, some successful Romantasy books are very “spicy”, suggesting that Gen Z isn’t as against sex scenes as they’ve been portrayed, it’s just that they’re looking for sex scenes that are romantic, kind of hot, and that cater better to women. Sexy sex (not meaningless, pathetic, breakup, or irrelevant sex). Make Hollywood hot again.
Does all of this sound interesting? It is! As part of my work at Fanthropology, I’ve been studying (and reading) Romantasy and Romantasy readers over the last year. I’m presenting our insights about the genre in my upcoming webinar with the social listening tool Infegy. You’re all invited. We’d love to have you.
Kris Longfield is a Partner and Head of Insights & Innovation at Fanthropology.
Fanthropology is an insights and strategy agency that studies audiences for film, TV, streaming, & more. Their work is trusted by studios, streamers, production, and technology companies as a north star for branding, marketing, and development on the world’s biggest & best known entertainment properties.
If you’re interested in the exciting kind of work we do and want to know what types of work you can hire us for, email usfor a presentation of our capabilities.
