EPPIE award categories

[erastes]

I've just fired off a letter of complaint to EPIC about their award categories. I don't know if they have been the same every year, but I only noticed them this year because, for the first time, I was eligible to enter.

However - reading the categorisations, there's no way I could enter as they stand.  They are categorising "romance" as: A story that takes one central, monogamous, romantic relationship between a man and woman from its inception to its happy, satisfying conclusion

Then as you read down the list, one (one being me) finds that one can't put one's gay historical romance into Historical Romance or Erotic Romance or Erotic Romance Historical Fiction because those categories say that they follow: "the basic tenants (sic) of genre romance" - so see above.

There's one - ONE! - GLBT category which lumps everything else together. Not does this not only skew perception that they consider GLBTQ romances can't "actually" BE romances but it's ludicrous. Utterly ludicrous.  So Age of Sail has to compete with shapeshifters and fairies and ghosts and criminals and contemporary and... well - you get the gist. I have suggested, politely, that they might reconsider in light of the way some people might consider it homophobic.  I doubt that it'll make any difference, but it made me feel a little better.

Romance Writers of America attempted to define romance in this way - last year? Year before? And there was an enormous kerfuffle about it - why are we going backwards with this?  I would have thought that ebooks, by their very nature were more liberal? Or am I missing something?

Then may I add "monogamous"? WTF?  Where do people who are writing love triangles go - if they aren't erotic?

Comments

[finneganthepoet.livejournal.com]

Greetz to ya,

Its been awhile, I know. I couldnt help take notice of your entry. I agree with all your critiques--A) that "We@ indeed seem to be going backwards, with a great many things, not just with Romantic Fiction, that B) people cant help think misthought about Queers, with heterosexuality dominating everyone and everything, whether these ones in question are heterosexual or not.

Please hang in there with your efforts, and most importantly, just keep producing your creative material, regardless.

I have an epic, sweeping queer sci fi novelseries under works at present, as we speak, and I am being very careful in it to introduce the sci fi first, the characters second, and then, the sex lives of the characters last, just because it seems more and more interesting, the more you read it. Of course its not perfect, but I am so keen on getting this out of me, I dont care. What I would eventually like is for someone like you to look at this, and make suggestions of where to go with certain storylines...

Most Respectfully,

F i n n e g a n

[norton-gale.livejournal.com]

All they'd have to do is remove "between a man and a woman" and perhaps "monogamous" and they'd be all set with genre. Sigh.

[marquesate.livejournal.com]

You know what almost annoys me the most? The monogamous bit. EXCUSE ME???? What the hell do they know about a lot of gay men? I know those who are, indeed, monogamous in their relationships, and even more who are not, who deeply and truly love "the one" and happily and promiscuously shag around, because - guess what - they manage to separate love and lust.

Were these categories made by GIRLS? Oh, wait, they probably were.

I despair.

[auburnimp.livejournal.com]

Homophobic in the extreme!

[jessewave.livejournal.com]

I don't know who decides on these award categories and definitions and it makes me angry as a reader that all GLBT categories are lumped together, so I can imagine how much greater your anger is as an author. Who gives them the right to decide that "monogamy" should determine whether a story is a "romance" (LOVE the 'basic "tenants" of a genre romance' -they can't even spell). Do they even know the meaning of the word "tenet"?

But perhaps rather than a single author writing to EPIC, all or a majority of the GLBT authors in the different categories of the genre should write as a group and demand that they change their rules. I have found that one person protesting something is like spitting in the wind but when you band together the results might amaze you. Good luck Erastes

Wave

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Thanks Wave- I hesitate (for about six seconds) from posting a post like this because I know that it's going to cause a reaction - good and bad but this is inconceivable. As I just said to gehayi - ebooks sprung from the loins of GLBT and Erotica - the rest of the world followed suit and now it's just being swept under the carpet.

I did write as "Director of the Erotic Authors Association" (for what that's worth) but I think a petition or mass signed email would be a good idea too.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I had to tell the organisers that this is how it would be perceived. Not an easy thing to have to say, I admit.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Hi Finnegan - long time no hear!

As I said below, as far as I can see - ebooks were spawned by GLBT and erotica publishers, so this marginalisation absolutely staggers me.

Your new project sounds very interesting - I'd be more than happy to have a look at it.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Perhaps also "from its inception" also. Why can't a story start with them already in a relationship?

[norton-gale.livejournal.com]

Right: why can't an established relationship be "romance"?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

That staggered me too - not only because of the GLBT slur, but because of the limitations it then puts on their conception of romance. Where then does the writer who has written a story about one woman who is torn between two men? Even if there's no sex in it?

I completely - COMPLETELY - agree with your point, but to straight jacket romance with monogamy is ... well, there are no words. What happens to those who are unfaithful? Do they go to hell? There's no category for "dirty filthy cheaters" - after all.

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

A story that takes one central, monogamous, romantic relationship between a man and woman from its inception to its happy, satisfying conclusion.

Seriously? What about the novels that begin with people in a relationship? What about love triangles? I am now baffled by the number of books I have enjoyed that don't fit into this category.

I second your WTF.

[marquesate.livejournal.com]

And the mould becomes so rigid that it kills off any creativity.

Don't get me started on the whole hetero issue, I won't stop ranting for weeks if I do.

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

I remember grouching about that last year. [nod] It's ridiculous. Not that I personally have anything long enough to submit this year, but coming at it from the other end of the genre pool from you, I'm just as annoyed. I write mainly SF, fantasy and paranormal, and my books will be compared with cops and firemen and cowboys and lawyers? And Age of Sail and Regency and medieval and whatever all else? [headdesk]

And yes, their definition of "romance" is stuck somewhere in the seventies, even without the homophobic twist. Mainstream romance is working in a straightjacket -- monogamous only, neither character can have sex with anyone else after they've met The One (whether or not they fancy themselves in love yet), absolutely no adultery or cheating ever, etc. Just try to get even a het romance published if you break any of the rules. Or even the we-really-recommend type guidelines -- virgin heroine (no matter how old she is), or at most, she's had sex but didn't enjoy it at all. [eyeroll] A new relationship is much easier to sell than an established relationship which is having problems and needs to be fixed. No matter what else is going on, the Love is most important and either character will ditch out on anything else to save the romance. Etc. It's ridiculously restrictive to writers.

We were talking about this recently in... I think it was DA. I pointed out that as you make more and more restrictive rules, people who don't like them will wander away from the genre, moving over to Chick Lit or Women's Fiction or SF and Fantasy or whatever, so of course the readers who are left will tend to like the rules. It's like opening a restaurant called The House of Scorching Chili, and then a year later taking a poll of all the customers and asking whether or not they like spicy food. [eyeroll] Of course they do -- no one who doesn't is going to eat there, now are they?

Of course, romance is still fifty-some percent of the fiction market, so they have no incentive to change. I'd like to think, though, that out here on the e-book frontier, we could manage to avoid adopting every single one of the big city laws right off the bat, maybe do some exploring, try some new things, see for ourselves what works and what our readers like. It sounds, though, like the EPIC folks are importing the New York rules and definitions wholesale. Wow, lucky us. :(

Angie

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I don't even know where a love triangle with closed bedroom door sex would go, to be honest.

[finneganthepoet.livejournal.com]

Actually my project is not new, its some five years in the making, about five hundred dense pages long, and a whole sea of powerful and talented characters which I feel obligated to persist with, other wise the great and secret muse shall abandon my heart and mind forever, and leave me cold and uncreative! LOL!

Where can I email you a copy, and do you promise you will give a try? No one has ever read through the whole thing before. I get about one hundred pages a year done on it on average, and I dont want to stop with it until the whole series is finished. I am thinking at Least Seven Books, although I could very well also be mistaken in this, and it could be as long as Four or Five. You will be given everything to date, Books 1-3

Most Respectfully

F i n n e g a n

BTW, your point about where ebooks came from only proves my earlier point, about heterosexuality being so dominating and driving that it takes over everything. but as far as I am concerned, the fact that alternatives exist only also demonstrates that one nourishes and serves the other, the queer leading and guiding the straight sensibility, because the queer one is probably far older spiritually...

TTFN

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I wish I taken more notice last year, but I didn't think I'd be in a position to enter. I certainly won't be,not while these draconian definitions exist.

Frankly I think that if they are going to insist on this stupid monogamous rule then they should have a separate category for it. Gehayi and I were trying to think of how many great romances wouldn't fit into the monogamous rule, for example.

My eyes are spinning in my head about the restrictions you mention - I literally had no idea it was that bad. How utterly mad. Why do people want to read the same book over and over again?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

email over to erastes at erastes dot com - can't promise to be fast, but I'll definitely give it a read over. let me know what level of critique you want.

[cbpotts.livejournal.com]

Let's step back for a moment and just ponder this. For I've read Standish, and you've read Gadarene.

Now let's try to figure out how to compare the two to each other.

What criteria would we use? What readership would be the judge? Gadarene certainly has historical aspects to it, but I wouldn't present it as a historical romance. There are moments in Standish that provoke feelings of fear and worry in the reader (I don't want to be spoilerish, forgive me for being vague) but I'd never in a million years present it as a horror novel.

Yet because the pivotal relationship in each is homosexual, we are to compete one against the other?

This is more than not an apple-to-apple comparison.

This is apple to pineapple. Or perhaps more correctly, apple to pineapple grenade. It's ludicrous, at best.

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

For a lot of people it's a comfort read. It's like going to the same chain restaurant over and over -- there's a bit of variety, but for the most part it's all the same family of flavors, and you know what you're going to get.

There are plenty of variations in other areas. I do read some mainstream het romances (although not nearly as many as I used to) and there are still some good ones out there. There's plenty of room to ring changes in your stories, so long as you don't mess with the Romantic Fundamentals. :/

I could understand if they kept the restrictions to the category romances. That's what the categories are for, after all -- certain types of characters and plots and gimmicks, a certain sexiness level, etc. With the categories you're buying a particular type of product and if you like that product type then it's good to know you'll always get it. The single titles have always had some restrictions (I was griping about the "No sex with anyone else after The Two have met" rule back in the eighties), but it seems like it's getting worse.

To be fair, a wildly popular author can break the rules and get away with it. Jo Beverley has transgressed a few times with impunity, but then she's Jo Beverley. :)

For the most part, though, the restrictions are in place, and particularly if you're a newbie trying to break in, or a mid-lister hanging on by your fingernails, you daren't step a toe over the line.

I wandered over to the EPIC site to look through this year's rules, and noticed a couple of other things. For one, the whole "no underage sex 'cause it's THE LAW!!!" is crap. Bertrice Small's The Kadin is still in print, and the heroine in that one is thirteen when the book opens, and fourteen the first time she and The Guy have sex, and I haven't heard of the FBI doing any raids on Avon's offices or warehouses. And yet that's another current (and fairly recent) restriction, in e-books as well as paper publishers -- even in a historical, you can't show anyone under eighteen having sex. I'm assuming Ms. Small was grandfathered by her publisher, but the fact that they can grandfather her without worrying about being arrested for peddling child porn demonstrates that the law isn't going after historical romances.

The other thing I noticed is that their lower limit is 10K. I thought it was 40K. :/ That means I do have a book that qualifies. Now I have to decide whether I want to toss it into the GBLT scrum along with the dozen or so other romance subgenres, plus all the non-romance GBLT books. [headdesk] Although looking at their list of books received, I see that some of the other GBLT writers are entering their books in various other genre areas, so...? But I have to wonder how much chance they have of winning, stepping outside their Proper Bounds that way. :P

Angie

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

Throw in some cucumbers, a potato, various types of lettuce, a chicken leg and a twinkie. [nod/sigh]

Angie

[erastes.livejournal.com]

*head explodes* Now I'd like to do a pie chart...

And thereby - which is not something I stressed to EPIC - the writers of GLBT are being discriminated against in a way that the other writers are not.

As gehayi says in her post here she can't think of any other award system that does this. Can you imagine the Booker prize being so homophobic?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Are they saying that all authors have to have characters over 18 because that's the law in some American states - even though the authors come from all over the world where their Age of Consent could be as low as 13 or 14 - or even illegal in their own country?

For an AWARD ceremony? I can understand a publisher insisting on over the age of consent of their country (although I think it's nonsense even so because -yanno - artistic licence etc) but for an AWARDS ceremony to insist on this? Monogamy and overage.

I'm assuming that murder is OK though...

Who are EPIC these days? Moral guardians?

I would think that the people placing their books in places they aren't supposed to go (according to EPIC) will only result (as their guidelines say) in them having pre-judged marks removed.

I'm thinking of putting my gay English Civil War romance (next year) in the Inspirational section. Religion is a big theme and it doesn't say no gays.

:)

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

What it says on their site is that they're an American corporation and so they have to follow the American rules. And they also mentioned not being able to ask the judges to have "child porn" on their computers, so I'm assuming that they're assuming a lot (most?) of the judges will be Americans. I'll grant them that the US can get idiotically hysterical about underage sex, and especially with an election coming up so soon; I'm assuming that they don't want to have to pay to fight something like this, in case some gung-ho politician up for re-election decides to show his/her constituents how enthused he/she is about protecting the chilluns. And yes, in the case of actual child porn, just having it on your computer can get you prosecuted, whether or not you were the originator.

The fact is, though, that the feds don't really care about written erotica, even if there are underage characters involved. They have plenty to do going after the photos and videos -- you know, the cases where real children are being harmed? [sigh] Although if the above-mentioned politician up for re-election made a fuss, the feds would probably sigh and do a raid, so.... But clearly Avon isn't worried about it, and anyone else who has historicals from the seventies still in print.

I think EPIC is being unduly hysterical about this. They're pretty much where LJ was a year and a half ago, except without (so far as I know) any actual complaints from a whack-job group to justify said hysteria. But whoever's in charge over there has decided that they don't want to take even a vague chance of having any trouble, so this is where we are.

And yes, murder is just fine. [eyeroll] That particular double standard has always been amusing, in a frustrating way.

Angie

[joyful-molly.livejournal.com]

Monogamous romantic relationship between a man and a woman?

Bush must be one of the judges.