Gay romance novels are starting to take off. I wonder if Mary Cheney’s Memoir will be as taut as the abs and pecs of gay gay gay bla bla bla. Market data: “According to Romance Writers of America, the Houston-based professional association, which has 9,400 members, romance novels are read by 51 million people each year and account for 49 percent of paperback sales. In 2003, the most recent year for which figures are available, sales of romance novels totaled $1.41 billion.”
If you’re willing to pay for the Albuquerque Journal you can read an article here about how rents keep dropping as Californian investors are flooding the area’s investment-property market. (I remember bumper stickers in Colorado complaining about folks coming over from the coast and yuppifying everything. They said “Don’t Californicate Colorado.”)
See also NYT on the global housing bubble amd on increasing price resistance and a slowdown in the NYC market.
Thx to Fleck for the tip on the real estate, and to the inestimable Bookdwarf for the romance novel article.
Secretly Ironic 