In a recent Huffington Post essay, author Maya Rodale makes an intriguing case for why romance novels are often ridiculed – most often by people who’ve never read one.

Rodale, who has university degrees in women and fiction, presents a compelling argument that romance novels have been historically derided by society because they empower women.

Writing romance novels, she says, brought women into the marketplace in a powerful way, both as sellers and buyers. Romance novels encourage women to get out of the house, to seek adventure, to demand true love.

Romance is derided, Rodale says, because it inspires and empowers “women to live and love to a higher standard. And because that’s a threat to the status quo, we’re taught to ridicule those who embrace that literature, that message, that vision of a life well lived and loved.”

Check out the quick, thought-provoking video above.

The rising ascendancy of ebooks continued in October 2011, with sales jumping 81.2 percent to $72.8 million, according to Publishers Weekly.

Those figures come from the 20 publishers who reveal their ebook sales numbers to the Association of American Publishers.

Publishers Weekly reports the 81-percent hike marked the first time in 2011 that ebook sales did not double over the same month in 2010.

Overall, for the first 10 months of the year, ebook sales were up 131 percent.

Mass market paperbacks took a hit, with sales falling 37.6 percent.Trade paperback sales were down almost 17 percent, while adult hardcover fell almost 8 percent. 
 
The one high point in print is that religious sales were up more than 12 percent in October.