Who Says Historicals Are Dead?

By Cheryl Bolen

During my recent long and arduous agent hunt I discovered there are a lot of agents out there who really don’t know the market. Some of them perpetuated the myth that historicals are dead.

It’s the savvy agent who knows just how thriving the historical market is. In the past six months, 32 historical titles made the USA Today list, and 17 historicals made the New York Times benchmark.

For the past couple of years I’ve been tracking the phenomenal sales in this genre, and I think a lot a agents out there are going to be sorry they didn’t. Let’s face it, books that make those lists make money. Lots of it.

While it is true that some publishers (Zebra and Harlequin Historical) have pared back – but not eliminated – their historical lines, others are building best-sellers on the foundation of veteran and debut historical writers – almost all of whom write books set in the Regency period of England. (Only one of the best-selling historical authors in my survey wrote outside of the Regency period. That was Linda Lael Miller, who made the lists with two Western-set historicals for HQN.)

I’m going to present here the statistics for the first six months of 2006. For my purposes, I excluded historicals that were either paranormal or erotica.

Two historical romances (by Stephanie Laurens and Amanda Quick) made the New York Times hardcover list in that period; three other historicals made the New York Times paperback Top 15; and 12 more historicals made the NYT extended paperback list.

And that was just for six months!

Avon led the list with six different titles; Ballantine and Pocket each had two; and those having one each included Bantam, Dell, Jove, HQN, and Mira.

Even more impressive was the showing of historical titles on the USA Today list, which tallies the top selling 150 books including fiction, non-fiction, hardback, and paperback. Thirty-two historical romance titles appeared on this list in that six-month span. Twenty-five different authors appeared. Twelve historicals were included in the Top 50.

Authors who made the USA Today list for more than one title included Stephanie Laurens with three, and two each from Amanda Quick, Tracy Anne Warren, Kasey Michaels, and Karen Hawkins.

On the USA Today, Avon led with 9 titles, followed by Ballantine with 4; HQN and Pocket with 3 each; Dell, 2; and those with one each were Jove, Leisure, Mira, Morrow, Signet, and St. Martin’s (with Houston’s own Barbara Dawson Smith).

While it can be argued that authors like Amanda Quick and Jo Beverley have built up their best-selling readership over many years, there is room for talented newcomers like Tracy Anne Warren, who made both the NYT and USA Today with her debut series.

Why wouldn’t a publisher like Dell/Delacourt try to cultivate the next Mary Balogh to fill those other months when the best-selling Balogh is not publishing a hardcover or paperback for them? – By Cheryl Bolen, who – fortunately – writes Regency-set historicals and whose agent – blessedly – knows how popular they are

This article first appeared in the Summer, 2006, edition of PASIC Basics.