Just a quick post to fact check the proliferation of billionaires in romance. If you've been anywhere near a bookstore, Amazon, or other book or ebook retailer in the last ten years, you'll have noticed that the heroes in books, and the titles of Harlequin romances, are trending towards the ten figure income.
To which I say: whut.
Yes, yes, I am oh so eloquent.
According to Forbes, there are 1,426 billionaires in the world in 2013. According to the World Population Clock, there are 7.18 billion people in the world and counting.
What does that mean? Well, that means you have a 1 in 5,000,000 chance of running into a billionaire, let alone running into one, striking up a conversation, falling for his sparkling green eyes and dimpled smile, and having him sweep you off your feet. That's also not even taking into account that a fair number of those billionaires are either married, older than the average romance novel hero, and/or not possessing of the aforementioned sparkling green eyes and dimpled smile.
Sorry for being the bearer of bad news, but Forbes also tells us that there are only 29 billionaires in the world under the age of 40. To be honest, my middle school science class was larger than that.
It's at this point that I confess that I have a soft spot for those Harlequin romances. I cut my romance-reading teeth on them back in high school, after all. =) I'm not knocking them, and I actually enjoy them quite a bit still. I understand the value of a good ol' fashioned fairy tale-like romance just as much as the next romance novel reader.
HOWEVER.
What this post is really getting at is a sort of wishlist plea for more real guys in those romance novels. The trend towards everyone's-a-billionaire is getting out of hand, and we need more real guys who aren't bazillionaires with their own private jets and islands. More guys who are small business owners, veterinarians, chefs, paralegals, teachers, nannies, and computer programmers. Let's even throw in an electrician and a nurse or two.
I'm not saying that Romancelandia has to be filled with stories where every hero out there has to be a plumber, but hey...wouldn't it be cool if more of them were?
Lost in Romancelandia,
NJ
Also, lumberjacks. Don't forget the lumberjacks!
ReplyDeleteWho could ever forget the lumberjacks?? :D
DeleteLol - rich and famous protagonists tend to put me off a book I have to admit.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it'd nice to have some more regular Joes out there, right? :)
Delete