RomanceWiki.com Documents The History of Romance Novels

The history of romance novels, from the roots of the genre to today’s New York Times bestsellers, is being written online at RomanceWiki.com. The new site launches on February 14th, in celebration of the official holiday of romance novels, Valentine’s Day.

By encouraging the entire romance community to add their stories and insights, RomanceWiki will create an ongoing history of the market-leading romance genre. Never before has there been a single resource to combine the various elements of the genre: authors, books, publishers, awards, reviews, influences, and connections. In addition to building the history of romance novels, RomanceWiki provides resources for journalists, authors, and readers.

“The romance fiction community is so large and so diverse that no one person can accurately capture the history of the genre,” says Kassia Krozser, editor of the RomanceWiki. “I am eager to see how the story grows as authors, readers, academics, and publishing professionals add their stories to the wiki.”

The RomanceWiki is built on the same software that has made the Wikipedia one of the most popular websites in the world. The wiki format allows a community of experts to collaborate when building a authoritative resource, such as the RomanceWiki. Easy-to-use wiki authoring tools make it a snap for the community to link ideas and topics, while the free-form style of the RomanceWiki encourages readers to spend time learning about the world of romance.

“The wiki format allows anyone to make connections between key pieces of information – and no technical skills are required,” Krozser notes. “Anyone can create or edit a page.”

According to the Romance Writers of America, romance fiction continues to command over 50% the mass-market fiction sales and over 30% of fiction sales in general. Key elements of romance novels are included in every other genre of fiction and are commonly found in other media.

The RomanceWiki is produced by Booksquare.com, a leading LitBlog (Literary Blog). For more information, contact Kassia Krozser at booksquare@booksquare.com or at (626) 791-5852.