Australian Romance Readers Association

Who we are

We are romance readers! This association was created by romance readers, for romance readers-and that characteristic spirit drives everything we do for the romance reading community. In late 2007 a chance remark was passed on an online loop - maybe we should have our own romance readers' convention… There was an overwhelming response, and the Australian Romance Readers Association was born. Originally there were sixteen members, but in the short period since, that number has grown to over two hundred.

Our goal

ARRA's goal is to:

promote romance fiction and its sub-genres
increase awareness of the variety and quality of books, and their authors
provide a forum for readers to communicate, share and explore all things romance fiction.

What we do

We organise social events each month around Australia, to provide opportunities for romance readers to get together to discuss all things romance fiction. From the banks of the Yarra, to the golden sands of northern beaches, from the windswept bluffs of Sydney Harbour, to the wine regions of WA - we have Australia covered.

With an online blog and email group, our members have 24-hour access to reviews, interviews with authors, giveaways and the romance reader community. Our members have the freedom and opportunity to organise events they want to attend.

We hold the Australian Romance Readers Convention (ARRC) biennially, a reader-focused event where members can sit in on panels with big-name authors from bestseller lists, and learn more about romance fiction, our favourite stories and characters, and the publishing industry.

Each year our membership nominate and vote on the Australian Romance Reader Awards, where we recognise excellence in romance fiction. This is a reader's choice awards program. Awards are given out at the annual ARRA Awards Dinner, a glittering event where our members can share a meal with guest authors.

What is romance fiction

Romance fiction is a literary genre that covers a broad range of sub-genres - from historical, paranormal and suspense to comedy, urban fantasy and contemporary. Romance fiction caters to a variety of personal tastes. Romance fiction is written with any tone or style, can be set in any place and time, with any level of sensuality, from sweet to piping hot!

There are two common elements in romance fiction:

a central love story
an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending

Romance fiction accounts for more than a quarter of all books sold, and holds the largest share of the consumer book market.

Romance titles commonly occupy five of the top 10 on the New York Times paperback fiction bestseller list, and romance is the second top performing category on the New York Times, USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists, beaten only by the movie tie-in category.

Romance fiction generated $1.36 billion in sales in 2009.

Want to talk romance fiction? Click here to join ARRA.

To read a selection of clippings on the romance genre in the Australian media, click here.

Romance readers survey

In August 2009 ARRA launched its first Australian romance readers survey. In total we had 334 people respond and the results of the 2009 survey can be downloaded from here. (Note that some people skipped some questions, so the results will not always add up to 334.)

Kat Mayo has also written an article analysing the results of the 2009 survey. You can read the article here.

The survey for 2010 closed on 15 October 2010 and results are available here.

The survey for 2011 closed on 13 October 2011 and results are available here.