Ideas For Book Displays and Other Passive Readers Advisory - Romance Edition

 Romance is in the air - and on the blog! As before, I am going to try to not repeat any of resources I listed before. Note that you can use many of them for a variety of genres. 

There are so many romance book blogs! I will list a few here but if you are a fan or have a huge patron base for them, you might want to spend time searching for them. 

Harlequin is one of the publishers even those who are unfamiliar with romance know. One of the most useful things on their site is what they call "favorite romance storylines" or what other people call tropes. They also talk about "miniseries" on their site which allow "readers to return to the same town, family or cast of characters to fall in love again and again!" There are non-Harlequin authors who do this. It would be a fun way to market your series fiction - call them a miniseries. 

Smart Bitches, Trashy Books has been around for a long time. It includes a blog, book reviews, book suggestions, and a podcast. They cover romance news and what's trending along with being a great place to go for your next great romance read. 

Dear Author is another long standing romance blog with reviews, new releases, recommendations, and essays. As with SBTB above, books outside romance are reviewed and pop culture like TV shows and movies are also reviewed and discussed. 

WOC in Romance is a blog that promotes and highlights books by women of color. The section labeled Find Your Next Read has tropes, subgenres, and categories of romance fiction. Use this to help make your displays as inclusive as possible and find authors you may not be familiar with. 

For queer romance, check out LGBTQ Reads. There is a section on the site devoted to romance with lists devoted to teen and adult romances with a wide variety of character identities and pairings. There are articles and upcoming titles. They also list books by region, historical romances by era, trope/archetype, and setting.

The Ripped Bodice is an independent bookstore specializing in romance. They produce The State of Racial Diversity in Romance Publishing Report. Besides news about upcoming releases there are also staff suggestions and book lists. 

A Reddit user curated a map with all of the romance oriented bookstores in the US and Canada. Their sites have information about tropes, subgenres, archetypes, and what's hot in romance. 

British romance author Evie Alexander has a list of 150 romance tropes on her website. Any of these can be used for a list, blog post, book display, bookmark...

Romance Writers of America is not without regular controversy but there are some useful pages on their site including a basic breakdown of the genre. 

The Golden Crown Literary Society focuses on sapphic/women loving women literature including romance. Their awards page could be useful for learning more about this subgenre. 

Romance.io is a blog with a unique book finder which you can use to find books with particular kinds of heroes, heroines, tropes, and more. 

Make a display or list based on one author - Colleen Hoover

 More than likely, you have books by Colleen Hoover on your physical and digital holds list. While you may not have the books in your building to include in a physical display, you can use read alike authors on your shelves to give back list titles some attention, bring attention to other authors that fans of Hoover would like, and advertise your holds list. 

Where to find suggestions? There are plenty of lists to get you started on your own display or post. 

Business Insider has a list - 22 books Colleen Hoover fans will love, from suspenseful romance reads to tearjerker YA stories. This list has suggestions from all over fiction and is diverse which I appreciate. It will also give you a taste of the different ways people can approach even a popular author like Hoover. 

A feature you can copy is Book Riot's book recommendation service - using email, online chat, or whatever your library can support even if that's paper requests. Their list of 10 Authors Like Colleen Hoover is another good way to recommend read alikes because it's broad enough that even if a particular title is checked out, recommending an author gives a patron many choices 

Other libraries make lists that can give you a good head start in creating your own display or list. The Topsfield Town Library has a list - Read this next: A Reading List for Fans of Colleen Hoover.  I love that it lists the titles by Hoover they own, points out part of their library you may have missed, and lists tone/theme/plot reasons why you might like the read alikes. 

The Harrison Public Library made a post of recommendations from a staff member that acknowledged the challenge of recommending read alikes from someone who writes books that are in different genres, subgenres, and have a different tone. Their post of Colleen Hoover Read-Alikes is clever and has a great graphic. 

Remember to credit your sources if you borrow an idea especially if it's online. 

He Went to the Library

Another librarian put together this book display with library themed romances. Be as broad as possible when setting up this sort of display. If a book has a librarian in it or library scene, it is enough. Romance is a genre rich with tropes so you can assemble a display that fits your collection or those titles that need some patron attention. 
Alter the text on the sign and a quick and easy cozy mystery display could be put up with the same theme.