History podcasters occasionally mention women, butthurt dudes complain it's "all women"

boing
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[quote=“Mindysan33, post:80, topic:79081”]
You got numbers to back that up?[/quote]

This chart provides sales perspective by genre and its from 20 years past when romance really dominated the market.

From a publishing perspective Harlequin was one of the most profitable publishers on the planet. Every so often it would dabble in other genres, be horrified by what was considered acceptable sales, and back out.

It really took a generation of publishers motivated by money over literary ego to provide Harlequin with real competition.

No more than only men buying Westerns and Thrillers. The correlation is pretty high, but I’m not idiotic enough to suggest it’s 1. After all, I read more Eva Ibbotson than Tom Clancy.

By any rational perspective, Romance is far more legitimate than pretty much any other genre. Westerns are totally moribund, and thrillers are nearly so. Was I casting aspersions on romance’s legitimacy?

Ah, I understand. Women’s lit is not supposed to be a section that interests all women. It’s a section that is of interest primarily to women.

Understood. However, from a sellers perspective, you cater to your important customers. And quite a few customers are primarily interested in books of that class. It’s the same reason you have a Science Fiction or Mystery section, but nowadays don’t have a Thriller section. Bookstores with Women’s Lit sections sell more books because they provide a service allowing their customers to more easily find the books they’re interested in.

I consider it the same way I think of marketing using the label “geek”. It’s what I am, but it does not mean that I am supposed to be interested in the geek section of a store, nor does it mean that my interests are expected to be confined there. But if I’m looking for stereotypically geek-related items (comics, sf-fantasy, etc.), then I’d know where to go.

Admittedly the name is a tiny bit problematic, but quite frankly, that’s the name a large number of readers are looking for. If it wasn’t, the section would have ceased to exist some time ago. And to be honest, it’s a way around the stupidity of genre snobbishness. Just like comic books become “graphic novels”, “romance” has become “women’s lit”. And to be honest, it works. So, if it increases sales and makes people feel less self-conscious, why not rename it?

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Welcome to the joys of no longer being a market worth being catered to… Could be worse. You could like Westerns…

(Me, I’m fine with a romance, but sex takes me entirely out of the book in exactly the same way as excessive gore. If it weren’t for the growth of the YA market, I’d be entirely out of luck in the modern market.)

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As much as I enjoyed the Soulless series I don’t think as a middle age male I was the target demographic. They were sappy romantic and only passingly referred to the sex. But I like the world premise and they were a good pulpy read.

The Sirantha Jax books were fun space opera but parts got uncomfortably close to romance novel.

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Except that romance is still it’s own literary genre, even though it’s sometimes classified under women’s lit. I do think that romance is now it’s own section at B&N, while I do believe there is just a general literature section there. Amazon is probably a better idea of what’s available via genre, mainly due to them having everything in multiple categories.

I’ll also say that it’s not like romance (which often are cheap, mass market paper backs as opposed to hardback, high quality books) are at the front of the store or in prominent locations in book stores, even despite dominating the publishing market in the chart you linked to.

But once again, despite the economic power of the genre, they are still considered marginal to the publishing industry and general separated at the back of the store in their own category. Also, I didn’t say you’re casting aspersions or that anyone here was, just that it’s still marginalized as a genre because it’s not considered a serious genre.

Which I don’t think has happened, other than playing up stereotypes about what people will read. I think the only reason that writers like Jane Austen and the Brontes are now being taken seriously as literature is because people fought for that to happen and that academics who help drive the canon, mostly women I’d imagine, helped to get those writers included in the canon of literature.

I’m not sure what you mean by western or thrillers being moribund, though, as there seems to be plenty of both available via amazon? Maybe you just don’t like the newer stuff you’ve read?

Well, but those of us who love books have been into those second hand shops with far less categorization (maybe just some general categories, like fiction, non-fiction, history, children’s, cook books, sci-fi/fantasy, biography, religion, etc) and those work just as well. I’d argue that these categories (like Romance or women’s lit or what have you) can act to reinforce our own ingrained stereotypes about some kinds of writing or writers and as a result, we don’t branch out like we should into new things. I think the only thing it really works for is lining publisher’s pockets! :wink:

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