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How romance, romantasy, and “smut” took over publishing and entertainment: A statistical analysis

Daniel Parris · · ·11 min read
Commentary by Hex Index staff

The Plagiaracy Paradox

A copyright lawsuit over Alaskan witch romance novels has forced courts to answer an uncomfortable question: can you steal a story when the genre rewards predictability? Daniel Parris traces how romance fiction—dismissed for generations as unserious—has conquered publishing, Hollywood, and the cultural vocabulary itself.

When Coincidence Becues Defense

The 2022 case centers on Tracy Wolff's Crave series, which sold more than 3.5 million copies. An Anchorage author sued, pointing to shared supernatural powers, overlapping plot elements, and an Alaskan setting. Wolff's attorneys offered a defense that reads like legal science fiction: the novels' resemblance was not copying but coincidence, an inevitable byproduct of a commercially oversaturated genre built around well-worn tropes.

"In a crowded market, two independently written romance novels can (and did) arrive at similar stories precisely because the genre rewards predictability."

Daniel Parris writes, "Once considered niche, romance novels now account for roughly 20% of annual book sales." The genre's influence no longer stops at book clubs. It fuels streaming adaptations—Red, White & Royal Blue, Heated Rivalry, It Ends With Us—and reshapes what publishers consider worth printing.

How romance, romantasy, and “smut” took over publishing and entertainment: A statistical analysis

The BookTok Engine

The post-pandemic explosion was propelled by TikTok's #BookTok community. Romance print sales have more than doubled in five years—an outcome roughly equivalent to DVDs staging a cultural comeback. Nielsen data shows 84% of romance readers are women, with more than half between ages 18 and 44.

Daniel Parris puts it, "This gender imbalance underlies a persistent media tendency to trivialize romance literature." The genre is treated less as a durable cultural force and more like an inexplicable fad. Meanwhile, men managing fantasy football teams composed of athletes they will never meet receives wide endorsement.

Colleen Hoover—now shorthand for unserious fiction, replacing older stand-ins like Tom Clancy—accounts for nearly half of all romance fiction sales. Her tremendous popularity has produced two big-screen adaptations in 14 months: It Ends With Us and Regretting You. Two more are slated for release this year.

Twilight's Long Shadow

The blending of romance and fantasy traces back to Twilight, which successfully blended romance and fantasy elements for pop sensibilities. Its descendants now occupy a subgenre called romantasy: fae romantasy (fairies and elves), dark romantasy (disturbing content), paranormal romantasy (vampires and werewolves), enemies-to-lovers romantasy.

Daniel Parris writes, "There will probably be 20 film and television adaptations of romantasy novels in the next few years."

Graphic sex entered mainstream romance through Fifty Shades of Grey—the best-selling romance novel of all time by a wide margin. Much of its initial reputation centered on graphic sex scenes and depictions of BDSM. The unprecedented success, coupled with broader cultural tolerance for explicit content, helped usher risqué material into the mainstream.

Smut, Reclaimed

"Smut" is a tongue-in-cheek term embraced by romance readers to describe stories with explicit emphasis on sexual content. The moniker becomes playful when combined with subgenres: fae smut, werewolf smut, hockey smut. Daniel Parris notes, "Nearly 200,000 people per month are attempting to unpack what 'smut' means in relation to this emergent wave of stories."

Once a word describing soil-feeding fungi, smut has been reclaimed as a term of endearment.

The Superhero Fatigue Blueprint

Comic-Con drew roughly 200 attendees in 170. By 2019, it capped attendance at 135,000. Comics evolved from dedicated niche into the entertainment industry's most valuable source material. Then Marvel's cultural dominance began to waver, undercut by full absorption into the mainstream and subsequent commercial fatigue.

Daniel Parris writes, "If these stories had finally reached a laggard like me, how much longer could they sustain their cultural dominance?"

He sees the same pattern approaching romance. Heated Rivalry—an adaptation of hockey smut—signals the genre's mainstream ascension. Like comic books, romance novels date back to the 19th century. Wuthering Heights receives a big-screen adaptation soon. What is new is the genre's mainstream ascension, driven by sociocultural shifts that pushed romance far beyond its traditional audience.

Critics might note that commercial saturation threatens creative diversity—the very tropes that make romance commercially reliable may also exhaust audiences. The Alaskan witch lawsuit is not farce but signal: a market so crowded that "unoriginal by accident" becomes plausible legal defense.

Bottom Line

Romance's conquest of publishing and Hollywood follows the culture industry's familiar cycle: discovery, overexposure, discard. The genre's grip on popular culture is stronger than ever—but its commercial saturation has weaponized imitation in court. Whether the industry that produces these stories will allow them to thrive remains open.

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How romance, romantasy, and “smut” took over publishing and entertainment: A statistical analysis

by Daniel Parris · · Read full article

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. ...