Paranormal romance is not as strange as some think it sounds, says author Nalini Singh.
"If you've read Beauty and the Beast, that's a paranormal romance."
The author whose work has made best-seller lists in America was one of the speakers at the Whanganui Literary Festival held over the weekend.
Singh said it was the ability to build a world and create characters which drew her to the genre while the romantic element allowed her to work relationships into the story.
"It's anything that's not part of the ordinary world," she said.
"If you take away the paranormal element there is no story. [It's] people from completely different cultures clashing."
Stories such as Twilight have brought the genre back into the public consciousness in recent years, but it had always been here, she said.
"It ebbs and flows ... there's more awareness of it, and the readers are definitely here."
Singh's success as a writer is reward for a leap of faith.
"When I sold my first book, I was working as a lawyer. I decided I would really like to give my writing a real chance," she said. "I didn't want to look back and say 'I wish I'd done that'."
Today was a time of opportunity in the publishing industry and while some areas were struggling, those with ideas would be rewarded.
"The New Zealand publishing industry is probably in the same state as publishing everywhere," she said.
"The publishers that survive will be doing really innovative things and really taking care of authors. The ones that can adapt are the ones that survive. I have friends that are fully self-published, doing amazing work."