Visit me at Romancing the Blog. You'll find my post on the announced demise of Harlequin Romances.
Since I'm into sharing my various theories lately, I'll share one more. Whatever publishers do to attract twenty something readers to romances--something they've seemed obsessed with for the last decade--they will never completely succeed.
Why? Because we all read to meet certain basic emotional needs. And the needs that are met by reading romances will never be as fulfilling and exciting as what late teens and twenty somethings are going through in their own lives. They are busy pair-bonding and falling in love themselves. They don't need to read about it during that estatic time in their lives.
We start to get fascinated by the thought of falling in love around puberty.
You'll notice the line in my Romancing the Blog contribution:
Unless ‘traditional’ romance survives, moms and grandmas aren’t going share with—and catch--young readers who will come back and enjoy a wider range of romances when they are more mature.
That's the best time in the world to capture young readers, when they are dreaming about Mr. Right and romantic weddings and stealing a first kiss. For me anyway, everything at that age was romantic.
By fifteen or sixteen, we quit having time to read. We're too busy 'going out' and talking on the phone and falling in love with every guy we see who presents possibilities. (We especially love the 'bad boys' we've fallen in love with reading romances.)
Then, the majority of us establish longer term relationships. And we're in our twenties. We're starting to set up housekeeping, getting married, having kids, getting a life.
Then bamm! mid-twenties to early thirties, depending on who we are and our own personal chronology, the 'romance' has worn off. (No, I'm not saying that the love has died, just that euphoric-falling-in-love-wonderful-magical excitement that settles into comfort and companionship and security.) And we're ready for a break from reality again. We're ready to escape for a couple of hours after the kids have gone to bed and we crave the fantasy and bliss of having a wonderful romance in our lives again. And we're willing to get it where we can, in a wide array of stories.
And that's why publishers are wasting their time trying to attract twenty somethings. That's why they should be concentrating on capturing the hearts of pre-teen and early teens...with books their moms and grandmas will let them read. With stories that let them dream and imagine their future. With stories that show how a healthy relationship works and doesn't work.
Don't get me wrong. The twenty somthings all don't get away. You can go to any college dorm in the nation and find a stack of romances being passed around. But they aren't being read by the ones who are living it. They're being read by the ones still anxiously awaiting it.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Monday, August 15, 2005
Kisses only???
I read Maili Ryan's Romancing the blog contribution yesterday with fascination. And the comments were downright insulting to those of us who don't especially love hawt (guess we can't spell it 'hot' any more) sex scenes in our romances.
I've had a theory about romance readers for a long time now. I think the people who are fortunate enough to have very good sex lives themselves aren't interested in reading 'hawt.' I'm one of the lucky ones. I have plenty and what I have is great. I rarely run across a sex scene that I don't skip because my reality is better! Occasionally, the love scenes (notice the change of adverb) are so much a part of the development of the characters and the story, that I do read them.
When I first started studying the romance market, I noticed that the people reading (and writing) the hotter stuff were, for the most part, people who weren't in a steady relationships. I drew an obvious conclusion. One of my critique partners--a fairly young widow--confirmed it for me. She LOVED the sexier reads. That, of course, was also what she wrote. She totally disagreed with my theory...until she remarried. About a year later, she took me aside and told me, I was right. She'd also started skipping the sex scenes and in fact, had quit choosing the books she bought with that in mind. That was all I needed to decide my theory wasn't just a theory. It was fact.
I do know that market trends have an impact both on what readers buy and writers write. (You can't sell a book with any sex behind closed doors if the editor who's interested tells you to revise that scene and add two more. You can't buy books without the scenes that some of us skip if that is all that's on the shelf.) But the trend toward more and more and more also explains the huge upswing in inspirational romances and the even more intriguing trend toward more realistic, 'edgy' inspirationals. Please, bring it on! (http://www.romancingtheblog.com/blog/index.php?p=296)
For those of you who may want to hollar at me because you read the sexy stuff AND have a great sex life, I'll point out that maybe your sex life is good because what you read spices things up.
In my ideal world, I'd find lots of wonderful books where the mental and emotional relationship was front and center and as intense as it could get. And the sex would stay behind closed doors because my imagination can fill in the blanks if I want to go there. My reality is much, much better than most writers can write it. And I DO know what happens after that long and luscious kiss!
I've had a theory about romance readers for a long time now. I think the people who are fortunate enough to have very good sex lives themselves aren't interested in reading 'hawt.' I'm one of the lucky ones. I have plenty and what I have is great. I rarely run across a sex scene that I don't skip because my reality is better! Occasionally, the love scenes (notice the change of adverb) are so much a part of the development of the characters and the story, that I do read them.
When I first started studying the romance market, I noticed that the people reading (and writing) the hotter stuff were, for the most part, people who weren't in a steady relationships. I drew an obvious conclusion. One of my critique partners--a fairly young widow--confirmed it for me. She LOVED the sexier reads. That, of course, was also what she wrote. She totally disagreed with my theory...until she remarried. About a year later, she took me aside and told me, I was right. She'd also started skipping the sex scenes and in fact, had quit choosing the books she bought with that in mind. That was all I needed to decide my theory wasn't just a theory. It was fact.
I do know that market trends have an impact both on what readers buy and writers write. (You can't sell a book with any sex behind closed doors if the editor who's interested tells you to revise that scene and add two more. You can't buy books without the scenes that some of us skip if that is all that's on the shelf.) But the trend toward more and more and more also explains the huge upswing in inspirational romances and the even more intriguing trend toward more realistic, 'edgy' inspirationals. Please, bring it on! (http://www.romancingtheblog.com/blog/index.php?p=296)
For those of you who may want to hollar at me because you read the sexy stuff AND have a great sex life, I'll point out that maybe your sex life is good because what you read spices things up.
In my ideal world, I'd find lots of wonderful books where the mental and emotional relationship was front and center and as intense as it could get. And the sex would stay behind closed doors because my imagination can fill in the blanks if I want to go there. My reality is much, much better than most writers can write it. And I DO know what happens after that long and luscious kiss!
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