The four owners (The Quad, in LI nicknames) have decided not to squander the market’s good will, and are winding down the business by May of 2018.
This was my first romance publisher: they took on the first edition of my M/M space opera ‘Moro’s Price’ when no literary agencies or Big Five publishers would. For the most part, for the first few years with Loose Id, I was satisfied with sales and marketing. When it came time to renew rights again in summer of 2016, I decided to end my contract. I have no ill feelings toward LI at all. It just became apparent that my style of writing wasn’t going to sell that much in their current catalog. Eventually, ‘Moro’ went on to NineStar Press, a stunning new cover, a tighter revised second edition, and a whole new series opening up in the next couple of years.
What happened to Loose Id?
Amazon, certainly. The rise of Amazon’s behemoth publishing schemes have decimated earnings at many smaller publishers. The abrupt closure of All Romance Ebooks last year sent many publishers panicking, as it had been (on paper) sometimes a bigger seller than Amazon. Loose Id’s prices had always been read as high compared to other romance publishers, and their attempt to bring down those prices in recent years was apparently too little too late.
The romance publishing industry is changing in interesting ways, as well. Big Five and larger independent imprints are at least paying lip service to diversity in romance, which may be opening up new opportunities for authors formerly only able to publish with smaller niche presses.
While romance readers still make up the majority of genre book readers, crossover stories with other genres are becoming more common and popular among both romance readers and other genres like mystery and SFF. Readers (and agents and editors) are more open to LGBTQI and POC characters and writers. The super-raunchy, at-least-one-sex-scene-a-chapter formula (adopted by many early 2000s erotic romance publishers) was a reaction against the ‘fade-to-black’ coy sex of most mainstream romances in the 1980s and 1900s. But a counter-backlash is building against excessive or gratuitous sex scenes, especially as Millennials ramp up their buying power and preferences in the reading market.
Quality of work, not unrelenting quantity, is a sought-after feature especially in the saturated self-pub romance markets. Writers can still make a bundle from releasing at least one book a month, but the quality has to be there, or seasoned readers get quickly bored.
I hope Loose Id is able to unwind with as little stress and confusion as possible, and their remaining authors find their way to new opportunities. I hope remaining erotic romance publishers take note of the changing market, instead of wallowing in denial (like Ellora’s Cave, for example.)