USA Today announced they will now offer a free app for iPads and iPhones featuring the latest news encircling their romance genre, Happy Ever After (HEA) and several e-books.

The app will provide fans of romance novels a glimpse of the latest book covers, interviews with authors and most recent book reviews. Pew (News - Alert) Research suggests e-reading is on the rise, so USA Today is among the first to target genre audiences with phone apps.If the HEA site is any indication of who will be downloading the app, note that HEA takes romance novels very seriously, and yet sees no shortage of visitors. These are fans.

At the HEA site you will find adoring tributes to Nora Roberts, passionate blogs and articulate book reviews, and of course, the quintessential, glossy cover of the romance novel, featuring the predecessors of Fabio. The description for the app reads, “Romance novels rock. Romance readers rock. Romance writers rock.” With this app, you can really rock on.It may be surprising that the romance genre of literature has such a huge fan following, but perhaps the increase in e-reading has allowed USA Today to pay closer attention to this market. 

Pew Research has indicated that 21 percent of readers surveyed have read an e-book in the past year compared to 17 percent the year before, demonstrating that e-reading is definitely on the rise. Furthermore, their reports suggest people with a KindleFire or similar tool read more in general that paper readers.“Those who read e-books read more books than those who don't have the devices,” according to the study. “The average reader of e-books says he/she has read 24 books (the mean number) in the past 12 months, compared with an average of 15 books by a non-e-book consumer.”

“For device owners, those who own e-book readers also stand out,” findings added. “They say they have read an average of 24 books in the previous year (vs. 16 books by those who do not own that device). They report having read a median of 12 books vs. 7 books by those who do not own the device).”The HEA app is available today.