Integrity Score 4442
No Records Found
No Records Found
No Records Found
What’s behind the astonishing rise in LGBTQ+ romance literature?
By Christine Larson, 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 by 40%, with the next biggest jump in this period occurring for general adult fiction, which grew just 17%.
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%.
It’s tempting to see this trend as a sign of the times.
After all, same-sex couples now populate TV shows, commercials and even Hallmark Christmas movies.
Surely it was only natural for books such as Casey McQuiston’s “Red, White & Royal Blue,” Lana Harper’s “Payback’s a Witch” and Cat Sebastian’s sparkling same-sex historical romance novels to eventually find their way onto bestseller lists.
But it turns out that this rise in LGBTQ+ romance was far from inevitable.
Our recent paper, based on interviews with romance editors and authors, shows that America’s 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.
The business of romance
Book publishing, like most of the entertainment industry, has traditionally operated under what Harvard Business School professor Anita Elberse calls the blockbuster strategy: Publishers invest huge sums into acquiring and promoting surefire bestsellers, such as Prince Harry’s “Spare,” which earned a US$20 million advance.
It’s simply more efficient for publishers to pursue a “one-to-many” business model – that is, to sell one book to a mass audience – than a “many-to-many” business model, selling a wider variety of books to many more small markets.
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.
Read Full Story https://theconversation.com/whats-behind-the-astonishing-rise-in-lgbtq-romance-literature-223159