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FOCUS / SMALL BUSINESS Bloomberg Businessweek January 29, 2018ILLUSTRATIONS BY 731Abookstorefocusedon
romanceaimstomakethegenre
more inclusive and diverseAs startup ideas go, a brick-and-mortar bookstore selling
only romance novels doesn’t sound particularly promis-
ing. Amazon.com Inc., after all, dominates retail book sales,
romance fans tend to prefer reading on electronic devices,
and the genre isn’t the kind of highbrow fare featured at
most of America’s remaining independent booksellers. Yet
two years ago, sisters Bea and Leah Koch opened The
Ripped Bodice in a peppermint-pink storefront in Culver
City, Calif., piling the shelves with titles such asBliss,Sweet
Revenge, andCamelot Burning. “We get a lot of custom-
ers who say, ‘I’m not a romance reader,’ then they wander
around the store and say, ‘Oh, I’ve read that book! And that
book!’ ” says Bea, 28, a graduate of Yale and New York
University, where she wrote her master’s thesis on histor-
ical romance novels.
Romance, the sisters say, has increasingly literary aspi-
rations and can make a serious feminist statement. The
genre makes up more than a third of the U.S. publishing
market, according to researcher Nielsen BookScan, with
sales topping $1 billion annually. And while romance fans
are twice as likely as readers of literary fiction to go digi-
tal—e-books represented 61 percent of romance sales in
2015, Nielsen says—they’re exceedingly loyal. Nielsen says
15 percent buy a new title at least once a week and 6 per-
cent do so more than twice weekly. True fans “will read ten
$2.99 e-books, then buy physical copies of the two they
like best and put them on the ‘keeper’ shelf,” says Leah, 25.
Bea discovered historical romance as a girl: “I loved
any book with a pretty dress on the cover,” she says.
Leah started reading her big sister’s hand-me-downs,
though historical novels weren’t really her thing. “I was
like, Oh, I wonder if these kinds of books exist where
the people wear jeans. Turns out there are,” she says,THE BOTTOM LINE The Koch sisters, who grew up on a diet of romance
novels, say they can create a thriving business selling the genre even in the
Amazon era.Love
Is in the
Air—and
On the
Shelves
sitting next to her sister on the velvet Victorian fainting
couch that’s a centerpiece of the store. But they could
find the novels they craved only at used bookshops,
big-box outlets, or online. “We would have rather gone
to an independent bookstore,” Bea says, “but they just
didn’t exist.”
Two years ago, the pair launched a Kickstarter
campaign to fund a shop and soon raised $90,000.
Kickstarter “allowed us to immediately connect with
people who would be our customers,” Bea says. “We
still get people coming in who say, ‘I’m a Kickstarter
funder.’ ” They rented a concrete-floored location on a
commercial strip just across the Los Angeles city line,
stocked up on the latest from authors such as Nora
Roberts, Beverly Jenkins, and Eloisa James, and in
March 2016 opened their doors. One corner is called
Fitz’s General Store, devoted to merchandise—tote
bags, calendars, candles—featuring their Chihuahua,
Fitzwilliam Waffles (after Fitzwilliam Darcy from Jane
Austen’sPride and Prejudice). “He’s very popular,” says
Leah, who posts the hours when the pooch is likely to
be in the store so fans can time their visits. The sisters
say sales grew about 20 percent last year. About 81 per-
cent of their sales are in-store.
More than four-fifths of romance readers are women,
and the Kochs try to foster a sense of community with
book signings, writing workshops, and stand-up comedy.
Online, they have Facebook and Instagram accounts
where they post recommendations and encourage
discussion, and their website offers a link where new
authors can submit their work. The store stocks sto-
ries for all ages: feminist children’s books such asA
Is for Activist; middle-grade offerings with female her-
oines that highlight girls’ emotional lives; young adult
titles where things start to get risqué; and novels fea-
turing characters of all ages, such asLate Fall,by Noelle
Adams, which is set in a retirement home.
The sisters see themselves as evangelists who can
help the romance trade serve a wider spectrum of read-
ers. Last year they conducted a survey that found only
7.8 percent of romance writers are people of color—
even though fans are increasingly nonwhite. “Women
of color have been reading romance forever,” says Bea.
Hoping to inspire writers from different backgrounds,
the store goes beyond steamy Victorian or Edwardian
bodice-rippers and includes what the sisters call “fine
smut” in categories such as LGBTQ, Spanish, cowboy,
and “bikes and tats.” “We have an extremely diverse
customer base,” Bea says. “More inclusive romances
sell better. And we want more of it.” —Amy Benfer