This isn’t yer momma’s romance, kids.
I’d like to share some breaking news cross-posted by romance writer Tara Lain:
Hi everyone—
This was just posted on RRW about the new J R Ward book—
Hi guys, I just thought I’d share that earlier this morning the virtual signing opened for J.R. Ward’s Lover At Last (This is Blay and Qhuinn’s book, the male/male pairing). They reportedly doubled the number of books available for pre-order through the signing, and in under three hours more than half the books available were gone. Less than 8 hours later they’re saying they’re almost sold out and they are looking at possibly, for the first time ever, closing out a virtual signing in under a day.
Yep. It sold OUT!
: )
Tara is correct to be grinning from ear to ear, like all the rest of us M/M romance writers.
J.R. Ward is BIG NEWS in the paranormal and erotic romance field. She has thousands of dedicated fans, and she’s made her publishers a hell of a lot of money. She’s also been setting up this particular pairing for at least 3 books that I know of, weaving back-stories and plots. Readers on the pre-order are saying things like ‘I never read M/M, but OMG it’s Qhuinn and Blay so I have to read it!’
Ward’s formula would probably not work for an author who isn’t already market-tested. Having a vampire series during the height of the vampire craze didn’t hurt her either.
This isn’t the only M/M pairing coming to mainstream publishing this year, according to some scuttlebutt I’ve heard from agents and publishers. But it is the most dramatic and satisfying way to announce the M/M genre to the wider world.
Sure, Evangelical preachers are fanning the flames of homophobia in Africa. French protesters are marching against gay marriage. There’s an uneasy Culture War thrashing itself out in mainstream US forums, as old/conservative folks are clashing with young/liberal voters and consumers. But for most people under 30 in the US, sexual preference is a non-issue. Labels like ‘gay’ and ‘straight’ are blending into newer, more subtle, more encompassing outlooks.
The hope for M/M writers in general is that if Lover At Last works and gets good reviews upon its March e-book release, then those readers might be more inclined to seek out other M/M writers with less familiar universes and characters. It may or may not convince the bigger publishers that the market is viable, which is why most of us are hedging our bets with the e-publishers who’ve incubated the genre. We have Josh Lanyon and L.A. Witt, who should be celebrated as masters of gay noir and contemporary romance – but they and a few hundred other great writers are stuck in the M/M ghetto.
I have a dog in this fight. I’ve been writing M/M romance since discovering Samuel R. Delany’s and Misty Lackey’s books in the early 90’s (there’s a dichotomy!) It took me years to write something that could be published. I’m not ashamed of the book that I sold to Loose Id last year. I’m thrilled to see even the relatively ‘mild’ M/M relationships in science fiction and fantasy books from Lynn Flewelling, Kate Elliott, Tanya Huff, N.K. Jemisin, and many others.
Readers from the M/M erotic romance community may not be as familiar with mainstream SF&F tropes, but they’ve been welcoming such treatments in erotic romance books for a few years. It’s no accident that most of the support is coming out of the paranormal romance community, and not SF&F. PR is new. It has little experience with the established tropes of a century of spec fiction, and less of the institutional and emotional baggage. Even the Romance Writers of America, a bastion of heterosexual normality at least as conservative as eHarmony.com, has been thawing and allowing LGBT romance writers into chapters and contests.
Less so, on the SF&F side. I’m still seeing a distinct resistance in the SF&F community, whenever M/M books are discussed. My erotic romance friends joke that we will never be up for a Hugo or a Nebula Award, even if we write spectacular SF&F – as long as we have that pesky graphic gay sex in our books. There’s a well-known writers’ contest that discourages gay content. In online writer’s forums, I’ve seen otherwise reasonable mainstream SF&F readers (and writers) become almost hysterically defensive when confronted by M/M themes. (Sometimes even sex, in general.) We suspect the main opposition is coming from the straightboy nerds who still consider SF&F to be their private hunting ground. I’ve had several agents tell me they wouldn’t touch such a mms, or even know how to market it. One of them even plaintively asked me to ‘stop wasting time’ and focus on more respectable romances. Or better yet, ditch the romance and just write epic fantasy.
I don’t only write guy-on-guy sex. I write M/F and even F/F – depending on the story and the characters. But as I’ve said before, when the sex is an integral part of the story, I will write about it.
So I couldn’t be happier to see Ward’s logical pairing of two much-loved male characters vindicated during the book’s first virtual signing. It means good things, people. You can be damned sure Signet and the other big publishers will be watching this debut as carefully as they watched Fifty Shades. If it looks like the general audience will accept M/M pairings, then the authors, agents, and publishers who support it are poised to make a killing.