The New Romantics: A Romance Lover’s Dream
How one inspiring Latina built a brand and brought together an entire community
With Bridgerton again having taken the world by storm and season 3 entering Netflix’s Top 10 Shows of All Time, there is no doubt that romance lovers are having their moment. The success of series and films based upon romance novels like Bridgerton, Virgin River and Red, White & Royal Blue have put romance front and center in the cultural zeitgeist.
Now a genre which was once hidden in bookstores and whose readers were often judged for liking romance is now front and center, spurring a romcom renaissance at streamers and a wave of romance only bookstores springing up around the country.
Jane Rodriguez, owner of The New Romantics, an online bookstore which recently opened a physical location in Orlando, Florida is part of the wave of bookstore owners and romance enthusiasts bringing the romance genre to the forefront.
“I’m really excited that romance is finally getting the recognition that it deserves and that these spaces are finally opening up around the country and that people are taking notice. For so long romance has been shamed and judged and I think that just goes hand in hand with women aren’t allowed to like things because we get shamed for it. We can scream and jump and cry at a Taylor Swift concert and men do the same thing and 100 times worse for football and yet we’re seen as emotional and all these other things.”
For a long time, romance books much like a love of boy bands and anything else deemed a primarily women’s interest has been looked down upon. The pandemic and Tik Tok seem to have changed all of that.
Romance novels currently generate approximately $1.44 billion in sales annually and while other genres may be experiencing a decline in sales, romance is experiencing a boom, aided in large part by the social media app TikTok.
Booktok has had a large hand in bringing the romance genre front and center, allowing romance lovers a space to share their latest reads, express their love for their favorite authors and draw attention to a genre that has long been overlooked. Authors like Colleen Hoover have experienced a new wave of popularity thanks in part to the Booktok community with Hoover’s books alone selling over 20 million copies to date.
There is no doubt that the market for romance novels is booming. More romance only bookstores are slowly beginning to crop up across the country and while the idea of entire stores devoted to the genre is a relatively recent development, for romance lovers, the love of happily ever afters and having safe spaces to be surrounded by such stories goes back much further.
“I’ve always had this love for anything having to do with romance since I was very young. I remember going to Barnes & Noble and getting those paperback novels that were like 300 pages and spending a whole night reading them. I feel it in my soul and in my chest. I remember the feeling I would get reading these romance books where you’re giddy and you’re kicking your feet. It’s so fun and entertaining.”
The transition from avid romance reader to bookstore owner wasn’t part of her expected trajectory. Jane’s journey is filled with the kind of twists and turns typically reserved for the pages of the novels her store sells. With a bachelor’s degree in hospitality management with a focus in event planning and a masters in higher education, one wouldn’t automatically expect the leap to romance bookstore owner. But for Jane, everything she’s ever done in her life has prepared her for just this moment.
“Everything that I have ever learned in my life thus far, every job that I’ve ever had, every skill I have ever learned has felt like it’s prepared me for this moment in the wildest ways. I keep finding things that I learned in different parts of my life that have set me up for success in doing this and for making this a really amazing moment to do it.”
Jane spent two years working for an institution of higher education in California. It was an experience which ultimately left her feeling unfulfilled. So Jane began a career pivot, starting up her own business first as a life coach and then as a social media and branding manager. She would go on to become an online business manager before a new opportunity crossed her path.
“I have always wanted to open a bookstore. I feel like that’s a secret dream that a lot of readers have. When I first moved to Orlando, I came across a space and it looked like a really cool space for a bookstore. It didn’t pan out, but it allowed me the opportunity to continue to dream. I made a business plan and was like this is what I’m gonna do and then I put it on the back burner.”
While Jane may have pushed her dreams aside temporarily, fate cannot be ignored and once again, the opportunity to open up a bookstore crossed her path.
“Last November, I was scrolling through Instagram and I saw that this space had opened up in Thornton Park and it was this beautiful historical house and I was like this is the vibes for a romance bookstore! So I went to go look at it and I fell in love with it, but I didn’t know anything about a bookstore. I didn’t know where to get books, I didn’t know anything. So I was like I can’t make this decision. I can’t say yes to this right now from a financial point of view. So I couldn’t say yes to the opportunity and that was the second time that the opportunity passed me by and I was like you know what? I’m not gonna let this happen a third time.”
That was November of 2023. In January of 2024, Jane started The New Romantics. She spent the first few months of the year building up the brand on social media as she launched the online store. In just 11 months, The New Romantics has amassed 17.6k followers on Instagram alone, spurring a dedicated following and a passionate community of fellow romance enthusiasts.
It isn’t just a business that Jane has been building, but an entire community both online and in person.
“There have been so many women in my DMs since I’ve opened that feel like people I’ve known my whole life. It’s just that connection and it’s something that I feel like we have been craving, especially after the pandemic. To be able to create a space where people can come and meet like minded people. I kept saying that I’m just putting out the things that I love and finding more versions of me because these are my people! The kind of people where we can talk about anything and everything and I can’t wait for the day where it goes deeper than just talking about books and Taylor Swift and stuff like that, but about our lives and our hopes and our dreams.”
Jane openly shares her dreams for The New Romantics and it goes far beyond opening a physical bookstore. If books are the food of the soul, then Jane’s hopes for The New Romantics seek to be an entire feast.
“I hope that once we have a space and we’ve built that community that I’m able to reintegrate parts of my old business to have these workshops with women about mindset and development and how are they taking care of themselves and integrate that into the work that I do because i’m never going to just have one singular interest. It’s never going to be just romance bookstores. It’s going to be romance bookstores and how can we make your life better? It’s going to be romance bookstores and how can we support you going after that job? It’s gonna be a thread that brings us together but the community is going to grow more and be deeper because of it.”
This past spring, Jane launched a crowdfunding campaign on Crowdfundr to help raise the funds needed to open a store, with a fundraising goal of $100,000. The campaign has so far received over $12,000 in contributions. Raising capital is a big part of entrepreneurship and anyone who has ever started a business can attest to the challenges of securing the funds to allow your business to grow. What makes the journey of The New Romantics unique however has been Jane’s candor and vulnerability that she has often expressed on social media.
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On The New Romantics Instagram account, Jane has regularly chronicled the challenges of opening a brick and mortar store. In a series of videos she has broken down her need for capital, discussing how much is needed to purchase inventory, operating expenses, budgeting for rent, expenses related to hiring employees and more. That level of transparency was a choice. One not everyone would make, but for Jane, it was a no brainer.
“I realized pretty early on that vulnerability is a strength and transparency is a strength. I am not a person who shies away from answering anything. I always felt it was weird to have taboo topics like money and how you’re not supposed to talk about it. Like no, let me talk about it. It’s hard. I never want to give a false illusion on social media that everything is great and dandy and so happy and exciting because it is and sure, I’m excited and happy and I’m super grateful, but there’s also the side where I’m really stressed out about finding a space. I’m really stressed out about the finances of it and being able to raise enough funds to where I don’t feel worried about making ends meet and to set the business up for as much success as possible.”
As a result of her honesty and willingness to discuss the hardships of running a business so openly, Jane has found herself inspiring an entirely new community of entrepreneurs.
“A really interesting thing that has happened because of me sharing that is that I have had so many people in my DMs asking me for advice on how to open a bookstore because they want to open a bookstore. So I want to not just do it for my followers, but to do it for those people who want to open the bookstores because when I was doing research, I couldn’t find anything. No one’s talking about it and there’s so many people where this is a dream for them and I want to support that wherever they may be. I feel like we keep things too close to our chest sometimes and as a woman who is a feminist who wants to uplift other women and support other people and entrepreneurs, I will help you in any way that I can. What do I have to lose? There’s more than enough success for everyone. There’s no reason to hold other people down because you want something all to yourself. The higher we rise, we all rise together and I much rather have friendships and support each other than see each other as competition.”
Openly supporting other aspiring bookstore owners and sharing information and resources with them is a testament to Jane’s overall attitude of community over competition. It’s an outlook that she attributes to her Hispanic heritage.
“I think there’s a thread there that’s a testament to my Latinidad and the fact that in Hispanic and Latin communities, there’s a much higher sense of community and the importance of that community and wanting to support each other no matter what. Something I’ve really loved about my culture and my community is that everyone is so incredibly selfless and willing to support you in any way that you need. I would be lying in saying that I don’t think that’s an underlying value and reasoning in why I approach things the way that I do that’s different from maybe other spaces.”
Jane’s nods to her proud heritage aren’t just limited to her outlooks on community building and business, they extend to her bookshelves as well. Currently, her online store offers a featured section of libros en español. Being able to stock books in Spanish holds a great personal meaning for Jane and is a major point of pride.
“My parents are Cuban immigrants. My mom doesn’t speak English very well. My parents have been the most supportive human beings my entire life. They have supported all of my dreams, they have supported me in every way and it was really important for me for my mom to be able to come into my bookstore and pick up a book that she could read. I want her to walk into my store and be able to find something for her. And what’s really cool about it is because of all of this, I have been able to get her back into reading. She used to read so much when she was younger, but I think she couldn’t find things that she could read. So I’ve been finding Spanish versions of all of my favorite books and giving them to her. She’s already read four books already in the last couple of months which is so great so that is why I wanted to have books in Spanish. And then seeing how much people resonated with that was so cool. People tell me the same thing like oh my god my mom only speaks spanish so there’s a space for her. There will be a space in our bookstore that will only have Spanish romance books for all of our beautiful Spanish speakers.”
The desire to create safe spaces to create an inclusive community extends beyond the offerings on the bookshelf. For Jane, The New Romantics is about so much more than a bookstore. It’s about creating a sense of refuge and community for people who are looking for a new favorite place that can feel like home.
“When I moved to Orlando, I didn’t know anyone. There were times where I wished I had somewhere to go. I want to create that space where people want to go when they’re feeling like that. Like maybe you’re having a really rough day or maybe they’re going through something and they just need a space that makes them feel good and to me, being in a bookstore and in a space with books has always been this calm balm on my soul. Creating that space for people to find community but also that calm and that peace that they might need or place they need to go to if they’re having a really rough day and have that be a thing that is known is a big part of what I want in the Orlando community.”
On that front, Jane’s efforts with The New Romantics is succeeding with the store’s in-person events often selling out within days. The community that Jane has built both online and with The New Romantic’s in person events is a true testament to who she is as a person. Jane’s openness, humor and unabashed love for all things romance has resonated with thousands of people in just the span of a few short months.
It’s an impressive feat. If she’s managed to connect with thousands of romance readers and possibly create new ones in less than a year, there’s no telling the impact that she and The New Romantics can make over the years to come.
“I want to create new romance readers in the world. I would love to be that gateway for so many people to give romance a chance because I think that once you do, you realize how fun it is.”
The New Romantics bookstore has already begun its soft opening with the store officially opening its doors in Orlando on December 7th.
