Jacque Tiegs has turned her love of romance novels into a new passion: her own business.
After learning that readers and collectors of romance books were willing to pay high prices to track down and buy rare titles, the mother of two from Gurnee saw an opportunity.
Tiegs, 37, became a book broker and, most recently, the co-author of “Collecting Romance Novels” (Alliance, $12), a reference guide for romance readers.
The book, part of the “Instant Expert” series, was published last March by the Brooklyn, N.Y., publishing house. It is a comprehensive guide to collectible novels and their values.
“This is a serious business,” said Tiegs, who searched for rare books and sold them by mail before writing the collector’s book with author Dawn Reno of Deltona, Fla.
“Some people are willing to pay a lot of money for a book,” Tiegs said. “For years and years, nobody took this seriously. These books never had much of a resale value, but there are people out there buying them.”
Tiegs, whose personal collection and back inventory now hovers at about 10,000 romance books, was not always a big romance novel fan. She was more interested in reading Gothic and true-crime books than tales of the heart. Her interest in romance novels began to grow about two years ago after reading “Angel of Fire” by Tanya Anne Crosby. Someone had left it in her office at the Lake Forest Park District, where she used to work.
“I had it on my desk for the longest time. Then one day it was raining, and I picked up the book and started reading it. I really enjoyed it,” Tiegs said. “I took it home and I read it that night and I couldn’t put it down. I just felt really good after reading it. I went to the girl who had the book and asked her if she could recommend anyone else. She recommended Julie Garwood, and then I read all of her books.”
A new addict
After that, Tiegs was hooked. She began reading romance novels by popular authors such as Jude Devereaux and Georgina Gentry. Tiegs developed a voracious appetite for more. She wanted to find older, out-of-print books. She bought a copy of Romantic Times magazine, based in Brooklyn, the romance reader’s bible, and got the phone numbers of book-search services from the classified advertisements.
“I found some book searchers, and they were quoting me $20 for a book,” Tiegs said. “I was like, `You’ve got to be nuts. Twenty dollars for a paperback book?’ “
Thus, a business was born.
Tiegs placed her own ads in Romantic Times offering her services as a book searcher. She began hitting used-book stores, thrift shops and garage sales to locate books and build an inventory. It was work, but she said it also was enjoyable.
“I started going to used-book stores, and then the owners would catch on and want more money,” Tiegs said. “You can pick these books up for anywhere from 10 cents to a dollar at the stores. It’s a lot of fun finding books after digging through boxes. At the end of the day, all of us book searchers call each other and say that I found this or I found that and trying to outdo each other.”
There were times when Tiegs would come across very rare books, such as early works by author Jayne Castle, which at the time were going for as much as $100. But the values given to these rare titles were often inconsistent among book buyers, and Tiegs was frustrated with the lack of agreement on prices.
“When I got into this business, none of the used-book stores or searchers had any type of uniformity in conditions of books, prices of books, shipping and handling prices,” Tiegs said.
An idea is born
At a Romantic Times convention in Nashville two years ago, Tiegs decided to compile her own pricing guide. She decided to sell the guides for $5 apiece at the convention and ended up selling about 100 of them. “People were genuinely interested in knowing what their books were worth,” Tiegs said.
During the convention, Tiegs met author Dawn Reno, and they began talking about the business of romance books. Reno, who has written books about collectibles and antiques and wrote a romance novel under the pseudonym Diana Lord, discussed putting together a book for romance collectors.
“At the time I met Jacque, I had just joined the Romance Writers of America,” Reno said. “And Jacque was telling me that romance books were becoming collectibles.”
They decided to do some research before going further and found that about 48 percent of the paperback sales were in the romance genre. They saw a tremendous potential market for a collector’s book.
“When we got the figures on how many people read romance novels, we jumped on it,” Reno said. “I had never worked with anyone before, but I loved her idea.”
Dottie Harris, president of Alliance, which published the book, said she immediately knew the book would do well because she had not heard of any other like it.
“After this idea was proposed to me, it took me only five minutes to decide to do it,” Harris said. “It’s never been done before. I guess I felt it was a natural.”
Harris, who worked for other publishers in the antiques and collectibles genre, said that “Collecting Romance Novels” reaches a specific and large audience. “I’m a great believer in target publishing,” she said.
Having experience writing about collectibles, Reno said she has found that most people who collect are not in it for financial reward but for the love of the hobby. They also are eager to find out as much about their hobby as possible.
Team work
Though the romance novel has been around for centuries, Tiegs and Reno decided to focus on books from the 1970s to the present because they found that was the period most collectors were interested in.
They worked on the book from their respective homes in Florida and Illinois. “We did a lot of phone calling, faxing, correcting, checking prices,” Reno said.
To compile their book lists and prices, they spoke with authors, book searchers, bookstore owners, collectors and consulted with Romantic Times magazine. Reno, because she was more experienced as an author, did most of the writing, and Tiegs did most of the research.
The 120-page book contains a brief history of the romance novel, tips on collecting, a discussion of market trends, lists of authors and pseudonyms, and even a glossary of romance terms.
For example, a “bodice-ripper” is a romance novel featuring the hero and heroine on the cover in a “clinch” pose, usually showing a great deal of chest and leg. These are the kinds of covers that the famous model Fabio posed for.
A “Gothic” novel refers to a type of fiction set in Europe between the 12th and 16th Centuries or a type of fiction that uses remote, gloomy and eerie settings to suggest mystery, horror and sinister dealings, according to the book.
The book also contains a resource guide that includes names and addresses of writers groups, magazines, catalogs, newsletters and other references for the romance fan. Computer users also will find a variety of references to on-line bulletin boards.
Tiegs said her publisher was able to get large bookstores such as B. Dalton and Barnes & Noble to carry the book. The first printing of about 20,000 copies sold out, so now there has been a second printing of about 35,000 books, the publisher said.
A good escape
The book’s early success was testament to the popularity of the romance novel.
“They’re providing something to the industry that’s really needed,” said Kathryn Falk, editor of Romantic Times. “This hobby of reading and collecting romance novels really started building in the 1980s.”
Part of the increasing popularity can be attributed to the women’s liberation movement, Falk said. Romance novels have strong female characters who are generally more independent and sexually active than their fictional predecessors.
“She’s become equal. She can fight. She can run a business. She can follow her dreams,” Falk said. “In the ’50s, they were sort of `Brady Bunch’ books.”
