(no subject)

[erastes]

Thank you to the eighty or so people who were kind enough to participate in my random poll yesterday. It's always good to see answers like you gave - although I rather think that my flist is not the most disinterested of audiences to answer questions like that!

Interesting points to note:

• More people wouldn't buy lesbian fiction written by a man than the other genders mentioned, but that is probably skewed by the fact that there are fewer people on my flist who read lesbian romance.
• I have a lot of "right on people" on my flist.
• Print lovers are put off by ebook only formats.
• Not so much the other way around
• Very few people would care whether a man wrote a book, even if he was writing under a woman's name. 

Now, I'd like these questions - and those on the EREC blog that I mentioned recently to be repeated on the Romantic Times site - and see what kind of response they get there.

Questions I'd like to ask the Romance industry were I sitting in the same room with them.

1. Why does Harlequin/M&B insist on men writing under women's names?
2. Is it because you think that only women are reading it?  Is this way you aren't interested in gay romance?  Why do you find it peculiar that men might read romance? Would you lose millions to give it a go?
3. Why do you think these covers are sexy? WHY?

Comments

[berseker.livejournal.com]

Why does Harlequin insist on men writing under women's names?


WHATT?? O.O

(as for #3, hell yeah.)

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't know that's for a fact - but I was told it today, so I'm assuming.

:)

[leatherdykeuk.livejournal.com]

I hesitated over your 'would you read lesbian fic written by a man?'. I was going to tick 'no' when i remembered that Pat Califia *is* a man now. Go, him!

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Hee! Well, it just goes to show. I'm sure that some men must be able to write it well. I don't know of any, though - because so many of them probably post online or whatever.

[sacchig.livejournal.com]

M. Christian and Thomas Roche do it well within certain parameters. And Jay Lake gave me a beautiful story (reprinted from Clean Sheets) for my first anthology.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

That's excellent - what parameters?

[angrboda]

Stupid question alert because I'm curious, although I suspect I ought to be able to figure it out myself...

What is a 'right on person'? Am I one?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Yes. I think most of you are. Right on, man. Correct without attempting to do so politically. Just knowing what's right.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

I'd like to see them do a poll on whether ANYBODY thinks the mantitty/heroine's cup runneth over covers are sexy. Mostly they're good for laughs.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I'm dreading Transgressions cover - what if it's got mantitty on it?

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

You can paste on a fig leaf, I suppose. But if they're trying to avoid the 'm/m=erotica' mindset, with luck it'll be more Dorothy Dunnett and less MJ Pearson.

[essayel.livejournal.com]

Mmm, Dorthy Dunnett.

Sorry, that was a knee jerk response.

My copies of her books have chess men on them and no worse for that I think.

[maximvanziel.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed the poll. Do it again :D

What I can't understand yet is there are people who are clinging to the gender of writers. I don't read many m/m novels written by female writes, but it's not because of their gender. I realized that what female writers want to write matches what female readers(in the majority, I mean) want to read(A good example is "Walking Wounded").

Somebody commented that the male writers tend to share porn in the stories they write, but isn't it what readers are asking? As you have pointed out, even male writers write unlikely scenes so often, intentionally.

As for covers, I stopped buying the books for their cover. A cover has no relation with contents, and the cover photos you can find them elsewhere if you want.

Wish you a nice afternoon :)

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Thank Max. I agree with you about everything. I think that people who say that men write more sexually obviously haven't read much female written sex!

:)