{"id":36481,"date":"2024-02-16T05:04:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-16T05:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=36481"},"modified":"2024-02-17T19:51:34","modified_gmt":"2024-02-17T19:51:34","slug":"whats-behind-the-astonishing-rise-in-lgbtq-romance-literature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/whats-behind-the-astonishing-rise-in-lgbtq-romance-literature\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s behind the astonishing rise in LGBTQ+ romance\u00a0literature?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Christine Larson<\/a>, University of Colorado Boulder<\/a><\/em> and Ashley Carter<\/a>, University of Colorado Boulder<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Graphic
CC BY-SA<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A major transformation is underway in Romancelandia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once upon a time, romance novels from major U.S. publishers featured only heterosexual couples. Today, the five biggest publishers regularly release same-sex love stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From May 2022 to May 2023, sales of LGBTQ+ romance grew by 40%<\/a>, with the next biggest jump in this period occurring for general adult fiction, which grew just 17%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The data from 2023 extends a boom that began in 2016: In the five years from May 2016 to May 2021, sales of LGBTQ+ romance grew by a jaw-dropping 740%<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s tempting to see this trend as a sign of the times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After all, same-sex couples now populate TV shows, commercials and even Hallmark Christmas movies<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surely it was only natural for books such as Casey McQuiston\u2019s \u201cRed, White & Royal Blue<\/a>,\u201d Lana Harper\u2019s \u201cPayback\u2019s a Witch<\/a>\u201d and Cat Sebastian\u2019s sparkling same-sex historical romance novels<\/a> to eventually find their way onto bestseller lists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it turns out that this rise in LGBTQ+ romance was far from inevitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our recent paper<\/a>, based on interviews with romance editors and authors, shows that America\u2019s biggest book publishers originally viewed LGBTQ+ romance as a niche market, tweaking their approach only after witnessing the huge success of independently published LGBTQ+ e-books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The business of romance<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Book publishing, like most of the entertainment industry, has traditionally operated under what Harvard Business School professor Anita Elberse<\/a> calls the blockbuster strategy: Publishers invest huge sums into acquiring and promoting surefire bestsellers, such as Prince Harry\u2019s \u201cSpare<\/a>,\u201d which earned a US$20 million advance<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s simply more efficient for publishers to pursue a \u201cone-to-many\u201d business model \u2013 that is, to sell one book to a mass audience \u2013 than a \u201cmany-to-many\u201d business model, selling a wider variety of books to many more small markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Historically, publishers assumed that same-sex romance would draw relatively small niche audiences, making them a riskier investment. As a result, for decades, LGBTQ+ love stories were left to small gay or lesbian presses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starting around 2010, however, digital romance publishing \u2013 both from self-published authors and small digital-only publishers like Ellora\u2019s Cave<\/a> and Samhain<\/a> \u2013 revealed a vast, untapped appetite for more varied romance. The \u201cBig Five<\/a>\u201d publishers \u2013 Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster \u2013 realized their go-to strategy was leaving money on the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Crowds
HarperCollins is one of the \u2018Big Five\u2019 publishing houses. Richard Baker\/In Pictures via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Initially, big publishers tried to shoehorn digital romance authors into the blockbuster model by acquiring their books and issuing them in print.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That worked for E.L James\u2019 \u201cFifty Shades of Grey<\/a>,\u201d which started out as fan fiction, was later released by a tiny online publisher and was eventually published by Penguin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But for LGBTQ+ romance authors, the economics of high overhead, big print runs and a yearlong production schedule simply didn\u2019t work for books geared for presumably smaller audience segments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As romance readers abandoned mass-market paperbacks for a wider, fresher range of stories, romance editors at large and medium-sized publishers realized they needed to become more like digital presses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making love pay<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

How did they do this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, they hired new editors who had cut their teeth at tiny digital publishers with a history of releasing same-sex romance. For our paper, we interviewed several of these editors, including Sourcebooks\u2019 Mary Altman<\/a> and Angela James<\/a>, founder of Harlequin\u2019s Carina Press. Harlequin has been owned by HarperCollins since 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

James, formerly at Samhain, broke sacred publishing rules when she launched Carina, the first digital-only imprint at a traditional publisher. Carina lowered production and distribution costs by publishing only e-books and by offering authors higher royalties but no advances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lower-overhead strategy worked so well that in 2020 the imprint created Carina Adores<\/a>, an e-book and print line dedicated to LGBTQ+ romance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Altman, who had been accustomed to acquiring same-sex romance during her tenure at Ellora\u2019s Cave, continued to do so at Sourcebooks, a mid-sized publisher partly owned by Penguin Random House. In 2020, she released the breakout LGBTQ+ bestseller \u201cBoyfriend Material<\/a>\u201d by Alexis Hall. Sourcebooks also launched a new imprint, Bloom Books<\/a>, in 2021, which sped up publishing schedules to meet the demands of self-published and other entrepreneurial authors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These structural changes made romance imprints at large publishers nimbler, more innovative and more open to all kinds of couples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ironically, many of these more inclusive stories ended up appealing to mass audiences after all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBoyfriend Material<\/a>\u201d dominated Best Romance of the Year lists in 2020. Adriana Herrera, Alyssa Cole, K.J. Charles and dozens of other authors of LGBTQ+ romance now regularly appear on such lists. \u201cRed White and Royal Blue\u201d is now an Amazon Original movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s important to note that LGBTQ+ romances still represent only 4% of the print book romance market<\/a>. Meanwhile, other diverse voices, including Black authors, are still underrepresented<\/a>. As a whole, the Big Five publishing houses are still adhering to the blockbuster strategy. Nonetheless, the structural changes they\u2019ve made in romance imprints have fostered an outpouring of more diverse love stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a time when other institutions, including universities and businesses, are dismantling programs that support diversity, equity and inclusion<\/a>, the LGBTQ+ romance boom serves as a reminder that inclusion doesn\u2019t \u201cjust happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ongoing social and cultural change requires new systems, processes and structures. Without institutional support, many people won\u2019t get their happy ending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christine Larson<\/a>, Assistant Professor of Journalism, University of Colorado Boulder<\/a><\/em> and Ashley Carter<\/a>, PhD Student in Journalism, University of Colorado Boulder<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christine Larson, University of Colorado Boulder and Ashley Carter, University of Colorado Boulder A major transformation is underway in Romancelandia. Once upon a time, romance novels from major U.S. publishers featured only heterosexual couples. Today, the five biggest publishers regularly release same-sex love stories. From May 2022 to May 2023, sales of LGBTQ+ romance grew […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":36482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293,8025],"tags":[4806,15193,837,453,13076,1740,11975,2197,3868,15194,7765,4424,3504,4608],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36481"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36481"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36495,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36481\/revisions\/36495"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}