Romantasy isn't a guilty pleasure: it's publishing's new blockbuster

Which was the biggest entertainment event of the week: a superhero premiere, a stadium tour, or a 12-hour audiobook about fae courts? If you work in publishing, you already know the answer, and it has wings.

Sarah J. Maas's A Court of Splintered Harmony, the sixth book in her A Court of Thorns and Roses series, came out on October 27. According to Variety, it broke her own release-day record with 1.7 million copies sold. Other outlets report that the figure includes preorders. Kirkus adds that it leaves out audiobooks and translations.

The numbers are only the start. The New York Times describes costumed fans turning out across the country to celebrate and to open their wallets. The Guardian reports that a romance bookshop in Leamington Spa had 6,000 people chasing 220 tickets to a masquerade ball. A brand launched a lingerie line. This is not a book release. It's a holiday with a book attached.

The book is the ticket, not the whole show

Look at what surrounds the novel. The New York Post reports that Knix launched a leak-proof underwear collaboration, built with help from 40 diehard fans and themed around the series' courts. The paper says it joins other lingerie partnerships and merch ranging from Sam's Club throw blankets to $700 ball gowns. Audible, meanwhile, is running a 99p-a-month promotion alongside the audiobook, according to the Daily Record.

In our view, this is the real shift. Superhero studios learned long ago that a story can be a platform for products and rituals. Romantasy has arrived at the same place by a different road, from the bottom up. Fans help design the collections, fans dress up, fans sell out the ball. The publisher has described running a year-round global campaign to keep readers engaged, Inc. notes, and the series went five years without a new entry. Five years of waiting, and the audience still showed up in costume. That is not a trend. That is loyalty most franchises would kill for.

The "guilty pleasure" label is doing the dismissing

Maas has been blunt about the way critics talk about this genre. On the Call Her Daddy podcast, she said: "I find that there is a tendency for people to roll their eyes at things that bring joy. And bring women joy, especially." Whatever you think of her prose, the pattern she describes is hard to miss.

One Substack newsletter, The Madrid Review, says Maas has shifted over 75 million copies globally while staying invisible to prize committees. Another account puts her combined series at over 50 million by 2025, citing Bloomsbury investor reports. The two figures differ, so we won't pick one. Either way, the point stands: a writer the literary establishment ignores is holding up a good part of the commercial side of it. "Guilty pleasure" is what people call a market they would rather not respect.

Respect is not the same as worship. The NYT piece traces the boom to the pandemic, when BookTok became a potent marketing engine and readers wanted out. A commentary piece we found even argues that publishers rushed to replicate the formula and the genre is now eating itself with clones. That is an opinion piece, and an undated one, but it names a real risk: when everything is "the next Maas," readers get tired.

Fandom is the moat, and the merch is the proof

Not everyone is thrilled with the extras, which is itself telling. The NY Post notes some fans found the Knix line "too basic" and not whimsical enough. Nobody argues that loudly about a product they don't care about. Fans policing the aesthetic of their own world is what ownership looks like.

Our verdict: stop treating romantasy as a niche to be tolerated and start treating it as a cultural force with its own economy. If you're a reader, read what you like without the apology. If you're a publisher or brand, the lesson isn't "buy a fae novel." It's that the community, not the cover, is the product. Book seven, A Court of Forgotten Melody, is due in January, according to the Daily Record. Expect the costumes to be ready.