Beyond Heaving Bosoms

by Sarah Wendell

  But the same desire for new entertainment that kept the mail-order-romance business in healthy vigor is now flourishing in a younger audience that haunts the e-book library at Harlequin. Instead of falling into antiquity, Harlequin is reinventing itself with the same product: short, satisfying novels for people who read often but for short amounts of time. The only differences now are age and possession of an e-book reader. The fact that other publishers of romance have begun to offer most if not all of their titles in e-book format underscores the major act of smart forged by Harlequin with their e-library.

  But aren’t all e-publishers skeevy? Nope. Not at all. But some e-publishers might be. The only thing standing in the way of the limitless success of e-publishing is some of the e-publishers themselves. There are sites all over the Internet that show you cute pictures of people’s cats. And there are other sites that discuss the more mercenary, scary, and economically clever machinations of some very shady e-publishing institutions. The former is fun; the latter, if you’re a writer, should be required reading. The Internet is a marvelously busy place when keeping track of salacious rumors that might indicate that something is wrong in a publishing operation, particularly one that’s new or doesn’t have much of a track record. What do you need to look out for? What’s the difference between a shady e-pub, a legitimate e-pub, or a print publishing house? Let us help you.

  Shady e-Pub

  Legit e-Pub

  Print Publishing

  Your editor is very forthcoming about every detail of her life, and how her recent bout with hemorrhoids has affected the company’s book production.

  You know your editor’s name, and a few details about her personal life. Maybe you read her blog.

  You know your editor’s name, and a few details about his or her personal life. You’ve had drinks. At a conference. Far away from your actual home.

  Cover art is drawn by a basement full of elves kept under deplorable conditions and forced to create using only brown, black, blue, green, and white, and Poser.

  Cover art can be questionable, but there’s an art “department,” or at the least an “art director.” Or a person who asks about the story and then downloads and alters stock images.

  Cover art might involve a multithousand-dollar illustration, hand painted by an artist. Or stock photography. But there’s a whole crew of art folks doing the art thing. On Macs. Which are awesome. Note: No one, regardless of publisher, is immune to bad covers. It happens.

  Pays you royalties with checks that bounce like the slapping ball sack of a very humperating man on top of a woman who is on top of a mechanical bull situated above a jackhammer.

  Pays you royalties.

  Pays you royalties.

  E-mail to the editor bounces like that man and his jackhammer, with a reply, “Due to extended inactivity, new mail is not currently accepted for this mailbox.”

  E-mail to the editor receives a response within twenty-four to forty-eight hours.

  It takes five or six e-mail messages to the editor, and you might get responses only when the book is due for publication.

  The covers portray characters whose sexual identity is in question, even when the book is not meant for the GLBT market.

  The covers feature real men and women in sexual poses.

  The covers feature the same woman’s legs on eight different books. Recycling stock images is for professionals only! Do not try this at home!

  The publisher’s Web site features falling stars and music upon launch, plus those irritating things that trail your cursor and crash your browser.

  The company’s Web site loads fast and is easy to navigate.

  The company’s Web site is updated but every page has uniform look for each book, plus a link to the publisher’s lawsuit against Google.

  The publisher asks you to pay a fee to list the book on its Web site.

  Listing the book for sale on the Web site is part of the publication deal.

  Your book is for sale in as many places they can stock it, from Amazon to the bookstore in the mall.

  MORE FEARLESS PREDICTIONS!

  Not every reader will embrace e-books, and we don’t think that paper publishing will die a woodsy death any time in the near future, but e-books will byte their way through more of the market in the next five to ten years. E-book readers will become as ubiquitous as text messaging on cell phones. Whether it’s a stand-alone device like a Kindle or a Sony eReader, or an integrated program housed on cell phones, more people will jump into the e-book market, and, as Jane from Dear Author has said to us on a few occasions, there’s no better readership for e-books than romance readers. We’re gluttonous, and we put our credit cards in the hands of our desire for more reading. Digital consumption and having a buffet of books to choose from on one device is as heady for some romance readers as a stack of brand-new uncreased paperbacks is for others.

  THERE’SA PLOT AFOOT!

  When it comes to predicting the future of a subgenre, we’re not so brave. Because it takes between eight to eighteen months for a book that’s sold to appear on the shelves, what’s being purchased now by editors won’t show up for a while, and thus what’s on the shelves now isn’t necessarily an accurate measure by which to gauge what’s coming down the turgid pike of romance. Today’s books are what someone thought would be a great idea over a year ago. However, we can make a few more sweeping, irresponsible generalizations about the plotlines of upcoming romances.

  The population of werewolves and vampires will level off and chill the fuck out already. There’s more undead and hairy on the shelves now than there are people in Los Angeles, New York, and Omaha combined, and that’s a lot of damn people. Paranormals will continue to be the hottest things since the sultry shadows of Nathan Kamp’s abdominal musculature, but they’ll move away from the undead and hairy and more into the territory of fantasy, alternate realities, and use of space as a new frontier for the what-what, butt optional. Urban fantasy will be the next overplayed trend, and people in a year or two will think of urban fantasy as they think of vampires now.

  Jane from Dear Author tells us she thinks that authors will do the hokey pokey and switch themselves around by moving away from the romance genre in favor of other genres where the happy ending and courtship resolution therein are not mandatory. She points to the progression of the J. R. Ward Black Dagger Brotherhood series as evidence that Ward is headed to more urban fantasy, less romance, while authors like Patricia Briggs are moving toward romance readers with emphasis on the romantic coupling.

  The line between urban fantasy and romance will continue to blur, especially as series become more and more popular and readers want to revisit the same constructed world in multiple novels. But the balance between gritty apocalyptic narrative and Happily Ever After will be a tough one to maintain for too long. Ultimately, we think, urban fantasy and romance will do the dance as old as time for a while, become more urban, more gritty, more scary and more lethal, then go their separate ways.

  And while we’re talking about scary and lethal, have we really explored the true possibilities of the paranormal genre and the possibilities of REALLY NOT AT ALL REMOTELY HUMANOID interspecies love? For example, giant blob of protoplasm heroes. No, really. He’s literally a hero you can mold into your own image. And let us not forget the variety of openings and appendages that can be attached to an alien species: with no real prototype to prejudice the reader’s imagination, the sexual adventures of plasma-based alien life forms are potentially explosive. Literally.

  Then there’s the paranormal creatures who have been ignored until now and should receive their due. We predict the arrival, the rise, and the fall(ing to literal pieces) of the zombie hero and heroine. The reanimated and vacant-eyed protagonists, who may or may not be stereotypically wrapped in tattered bandages and old clothing, can dry-hump with the best of them, and their love should definitely see the light of day—unless the light of day sets them on fire, in which case, even better. Hot fiery
love is the best kind.

  In historical romance, Victorians will be the next big boom, partially because of the more modern concepts that are possible within that time period, such as the arrival of newer technologies and the possibility of divorce, and partially because the Regency is tired and needs a rest. Jane from Dear Author agrees: the success of writers like Sherry Thomas, who set her first two novels, Private Arrangements and Delicious, in the late Victorian era, means that more writers will think outside the Regency box and spill over into adjoining historical eras. A new set of social rules and standards, with the same emphasis on wealth and exclusivity, means that readers will have their history lessons and their opulence in scorching passionate love stories set in an era that was about as sexually conflicted as our own. That right there is the lacy thong icing on the cupcake of repressed desire. We’ll take a baker’s dozen.

  While there was a brief blip of Harlequins in Roman settings, the toga-toga-toga romance will probably remain limited. But the arrival of the Harlequin Blaze historical line could mean some hot, hot sexing in some very cool historical settings. Our preferences? Is there a historical setting that hasn’t really received enough love and affection from the romance crowd? Not really. But reader preference for specific historical periods points to another prediction that we do feel rather confident about: the world of the series, and the series set in the same world, will continue without any signs of withering. Whether there’s multiple books set within the same constructed world, or within the same period of society, or there’s novels that follow one another in a specific timeline, readers love to revisit and writers certainly seem to enjoy indulging in multiple forays into the worlds they spent so much time and so much research constructing. The power of that revisit is overwhelmingly attractive, especially from a profit sense, because if readers get hooked on a world, whether it’s slang-slinging vampires or otherworldly detectives, supernatural athletes or boarding schools for the paranormally inclined, they’ll keep looking for the next installment.

  And while we’re talking trends that affect all genres, let’s talk about the Gheys. Gay romances will hit the mainstream. Count on it. There will be a boom, like it or not, as publishers realize that all those heterosexual female gay erotica and slash fanfiction writers exist on the Internet with great popularity because they, and the people who follow them, are hungry and eager for a type of story they can’t get anywhere else. Never doubt the power of the Internet to indulge the fantasies and sexual interests of everyone and anyone, and if publishers don’t get on board the Good Ship Buttsecks soon, they will miss out on the fun and profits of the Hershey Highway Love Stories.

  But(t) while e-publishers have satisfied a very horny market that was after more outrageous and adventurous erotica, the erotica e-market has probably and likely leveled out. E-book writing for an e-publisher won’t necessarily be the path to mainstream publishing that it once was, especially as more taboo sexual subjects become standard fare in erotic romance. The last and final frontier of sexual exploration isn’t so much the sexual congress itself, but the sex of the protagonists. Two men, and after that, two women, will be embraced by romance readers as valid protagonists of romance fiction, as will the writers who craft their stories.

  Which leads us to our last and final prediction: the warping of what Happily Ever After really means. Happy endings will not just mean heterosexual monogamy, though the readers who hanker for exactly that will not go away. The future conclusions of romances will include multiple partners and varying definitions of family, not to mention the variations of sexuality. Bisexual heroines and heroes? Bring them on. Homosexual happy endings, in the narrative and literal sense? Word up. Ambiguous endings that don’t spell out in alphabetical order the marriage, the 2.5 children, and the merry blissful future in the epilogue with the whole family hale and happy forever? That, too. It may be the most controversial part of the future of romance, but we envision endings that allow the reader to play more of a role in interpreting the future. The writer may provide enough evidence that the protagonists can live together in blissful cohabitation for the rest of their lives, but it won’t be explicitly stated, allowing the readers to presume whatever future they like. It won’t be popular, but it’ll happen, particularly on the border between Mainstream Taken Very Seriously Fiction and the Romance Genre.

  Finally, our Top Five Wish List for anyone who is dreaming of the perfect romance plot that’s never been done before:

  1. Werefish. Wereamphibians, really. Wereslugs. Werefish. Weresquid. That whole kiss-the-frog thing has really not been appropriately visited.

  2. The Vampire Motivational Speaker’s Bureau. They’ve got fangs and Mighty Wangs, and everyone should hold hands, rub one another’s backs, and chant their way to O-positive thinking.

  3. Erotic inspirational romance: Oh, God, Oh God, Oh God. End of story.

  4. If NASCAR fans got their own line, and historical romance fans who love Blaze got their own line, we want us some atheist romance. Candy suggests, “God is dead, but our love isn’t.”

  5. And while Candy is making wishes: hipster romance, please. Intelligent, thin, toned, and confident dudes—the opposite of the overmuscled alpha Thor model—who like concerts, bands you’ve never heard of, and staying up all night arguing about the economic analysis of food consumption in first-vs. third-world countries, then going out for big-ass pancakes at 5:00 a.m.

  Here’s the part where being bloggers by nature presents a real and massive problem. There’s an end, and we’ve come to it. Online, our site grows in all directions. Old entries get new comments, even entries that are two or three years old. New entries get comments. Entries inspire new entries, or a contest in which we write haikus about boobs. The discussion spreads out like back fat in a too-tight corset. A book, alas, comes to an end, and we know we’re going to be assaulted by the “But wait!”s for at least a few months as we think of one more thing we wanted to tell you about romance and how awesome and awesomely hysterical it is. But all good things come to an end, and while we hope you’ve had as good a time reading as we have had writing, we propose that all things ending yield more good, which is to say: come by and visit us. We’re still talking online, and if you want to dish romance, we’re always around at smartbitchestrashybooks.com.

  Thanks for reading, and thanks for loving the Luuuuurve™ as much as we do. May we all live Happily Ever After.

  WORKS CITED

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  ———. Personal interview. May 11, 2008.

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  ———. E-mail. May 15, 2008.

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  ———. Personal interview. June 2, 2008.

  Low, Gennita. “Uber Kick-Ass Heroine Has No Front.” http://roofer author.blogspot.com/2007/08/uber-kick-ass-heroine-has-no-fron t.html/. May 24, 2008.

  Lynne, Robin. “Your Scandalous Ways by Loretta Chase.” DearAuthor.com. June 15, 2008. http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2008/05/08/review-your-scandalous-ways-by-loretta-chase-2/.

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  Mussell, Kay. Fantasy and Reconciliation: Contemporary Formulas of Women’s Romance Fiction. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984.