© Romance Writers of America website

"These statistics were compiled by RWA from Book Industry Study Group and American Bookseller Association reports, and from tallies in Ingram's catalogue of all book releases."

• Romance generated $1.37 billion in sales in 2000.
• There were 2,289 romances released in 2000.
• Romance fiction comprises 18% of all books sold (not including children's books).
• Romance fiction comprises 55.9% of all popular paperback fiction sold in North America.
• Romance fiction comprises 37.2% of all popular fiction sold. (Different from above, this figure includes not just paperbacks, but hardcovers as well.)
  
  To compare:
  
  
• Mystery/Detective/Suspense is 28.1% of popular fiction sales
• General Fiction is 12.9% of popular fiction sales
• Science Fiction/Fantasy is 7.2% of popular fiction sales
• Religious, occult, westerns, male adventure, general history, adult and movie tie-ins was 14.6% of popular fiction sales