These little romance books are reviving readers’ sex drives
The founders of 831 Stories believe that anyone can write romance, that great love stories should never end and that even the genre’s sceptics want a ‘happily ever after’.
When Claire Mazur and Erica Cerulo started reading romance books five years ago, they found they couldn’t stop. Robinne Lee’s The Idea of You, about a boy-band frontman falling for an older woman, and Talia Hibbert’s Take a Hint, Dani Brown, in which two friends pretend to be a couple, were their gateway drugs. Soon they were both “neck deep”, as Cerulo put it, in the genre’s escapist plot lines and explicit sex scenes
The two women are longtime friends and co-founders of an e-commerce business, a podcast and a newsletter. “We were talking about romance so much with each other, I remember really consciously being like, ‘We’re not starting a business around this’,” Mazur says.
Since its launch last September, their company, 831 Stories, has published three romance novellas, with three more to come before it turns one and starts publishing new books every month. Though the business is young and still small – Cerulo and Mazur declined to share exact sales figures – its colour-blocked covers have taken over social feeds and US store displays. Slim volumes that fit in a purse and can be read in a single sitting, the books appeal to both longstanding romance fans and readers who may have previously stuck their noses up at the genre.
In these novellas, romantic fantasies play out in the lives of independent, professional women. A political strategist reeling from her messy divorce gets an email from her teenage crush. A writer in LA meets an alluring stranger while waiting for a date who’s very late. A 25-year-old starting over in a new city finds, for the first time in her life, that she’s attracted to a man. All of the women have lots of great sex. All of them get a “happily ever after”.
The authors 831 has courted aren’t all veterans of the genre. Some are first-time romance authors. Some are even rookie novelists. Where traditional publishers typically seek a completed manuscript, Mazur and Cerulo ask for only an outline and a sample chapter. They pair novice authors with developmental editors – “true romance-heads”, Cerulo says – who work with authors to craft their drafts. 831 refers to the pager code for “I love you”.
Romance is a big and growing business. In 2024, romance book sales reached 65.8 million units across print and ebooks in the US, up 11 per cent from 2023, according to book tracker Circana BookScan. Romance accounts for 21 per cent of all adult fiction sales. Offshoot genres such as romantasy have dominated bestseller lists in recent years.
“Romance readers read so much,” said Bea Hodges-Koch, co-founder of the Ripped Bodice, a romance bookstore in Brooklyn and Los Angeles. (She also happens to be Cerulo and Mazur’s former intern at Of a Kind, the e-commerce website they ran until 2019.) Customers regularly spend hundreds of dollars in a single visit to the store.
The genre is sometimes criticised for being formulaic, but the 831 founders see formula as the key to romance’s success. Readers trust that the plot will follow certain tropes (831 sells hats that correspond to popular ones such as “second chance romance” and “enemies to lovers”) and that they will get a happy ending.
uAnd they know female pleasure will be central to the story. “In a lot of entertainment, it’s the men who are supposed to be horny, no matter what archetype he is,” Mazur says, whereas in romance, “women are all given the privilege of being horny”.
Early in the pandemic, she’d recommended various titles to friends whose sex lives with their partners had stalled, to great success: “They were like, ‘I thought my sex drive had dried up, but actually it just hasn’t been stimulated’.”
Cerulo and Mazur see themselves as enthusiasts of an often-maligned genre. “We have so many friends who would tell you that they don’t read or like romance, but they’re obsessed with Sally Rooney and Bridgerton, and are Jane Austen fans,” says Cerulo. They worked with creative services group C47 on their brand identity and a colour-blocked cover design, a very different look from the traditional “embracing beneath the moonlight” romance covers from imprints such as Harlequin and Mills & Boon.
The founders often cite Bravo and Marvel as inspiration. When someone finishes one of their reality series or films, there are plenty of extensions for them to consume. “There are Skinny Girl margaritas waiting for you,” says Cerulo. “There’s Bravocon, there’s the podcast recap show.” At 831, every book has its own “universe”, featuring merchandise, events, music, spin-off books and more.
Before the first 831 book, Big Fan, had even been released, romance fans were asking for a membership program. Cerulo and Mazur launched a version in late January: $US99 ($155) for five upcoming books, a welcome pack and early or exclusive access to events and discounts.
Memberships currently make up 37 per cent of 831’s direct-to-consumer revenue, and merchandise accounts for 36 per cent. While Amazon accounts for most sales of the books, 831’s own website ranks second. Big Fan and Comedic Timing have gone into additional print runs after initial runs of 10,000 books.
Big Fan, about a Washington DC politico who makes an unlikely connection with her former celebrity crush, was author Alexandra Romanoff’s first novel for adults. She publishes young adult fiction as Zan Romanoff.
“Publishing is just so hard and can be so lonely, and working with people who you know care about you and the book makes such a difference,” Romanoff says. Cerulo and Mazur line-edit every manuscript before it’s published. The founders’ retail experience also gave them an edge, Romanoff says. “People in the publishing industry can’t always figure out how to market things.” Later this year, Romanoff will publish a Big Fan spin-off book, Square Waves, from the perspective of the younger woman with whom the protagonist’s ex-husband had an affair.
831 has a partnership with Authors Equity, a publisher that gives authors the majority of their books’ profits instead of advances, and distributes its books with Simon & Schuster. Its business model is shaking up traditional publishing.
“If you want to know where the market’s going, it’s always a good idea to pay close attention to romance,” says Madeline McIntosh, former CEO of Penguin Random House who co-founded Authors Equity. She says that while many publishers are chasing success in the category, it can be hard to stand out.
“That’s what we’ve loved about the 831 vision. They have a very specific aesthetic that reminded me of the old classic Penguin covers,” says McIntosh. “And their proven track record of building direct consumer relationships is coming to bear very quickly in this new context.”
Cerulo and Mazur are working with Blair Kohan, a partner at United Talent Agency, to pursue opportunities in Hollywood. Kohan, who also represents best-selling author Colleen Hoover, reached out to them.
“There were scores of agents who wanted to get in on (831),” Kohan says. “The film marketplace is obviously very interested in adapting IP, which has a built-in fan base. We’re submitting to producers, directors and screenwriters. There are also screenwriters who are curious about reverse engineering – taking the idea they had for a screenplay and adapting it into a book first, then bringing it to film.”
The Wall Street Journal
Simon & Schuster distributes 831 Stories publications in Australia.
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