"In a packed room in Sydney, an excited crowd riffles through stacks of stickers and bookmarks searching for their favourite characters. Another group flicks through racks of clothing, pulling out T-shirts that say romance readers club and probably reading about fairies. A poster on the wall, with tear-off tabs, invites visitors to take what they need: a love triangle, a love confession mid-dragon battle, a morally grey man or a cowboy. Half of the tabs have already been taken."
"This is a pop-up shop for bookish merchandise: visitors already know which tropes they want to go home with. I've come along with my sister, a devoted romance reader, and suddenly found myself amid a vibrant and rich fan community. The pop-up store is held by Books With Jess, an Australian small business that makes handmade book-themed merchandise. The event was advertised to the account's 23,000 followers on Instagram, and many showed up: the queue outside the warehouse in Chippendale stretches down the block."
A Sydney pop-up shop sold book-themed stickers, bookmarks and trope-focused merchandise to a crowd that arrived knowing which tropes they wanted. Books With Jess, an Australian small business, ran the event and promoted it to 23,000 Instagram followers, producing a long queue outside a Chippendale warehouse. BookTok and Bookstagram grew significantly after 2020, with romance and romantasy emerging as the most popular genres. Core participants are women in their 20s and 30s who matured in online fan communities. A 25-year-old Brisbane teacher began reviewing romance in 2020 and now reads 200–400 books a year.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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