Changes

So far the news is that Arabesque will remain separate and more of a single-title line--although things may change.

Harlequin started recently acquiring some black authors in its major lines and publishing them alongside the others. Now the majority of those authors have also been signed for the separate AA line.

I've heard in the past that black authors sales are far below par when sold alongside white titles--I'm not sure on what's happened recently--but I would guess if everything was going well, they wouldn't have made changes and continued to acquire black authors for their major lines.

I think the majority romance market and culture as a whole demands black title segregation. The large corporate entities are primarily interested in following the the money rather than any American cultural mores. They merely comply with demands of the market.

Black romance is obviously treated far differently than whites by the majority romance community. Why would this be the case if books by black authors were not assumed to be inherently different, possibly inferior?

Fifteen years ago black romance authors were basically not allowed to exist--unless they passed as white. Today, black romance authors can only write for black readers. This is also the case for almost all authors in mainstream woman's fiction too, and probably most but a tiny percentage in any genre except literary fiction.

Race absolutely defines a romance writer more than anything else today--all sub-genres separated into two categories of black and not-black.

Monica -

Thanks for your comment. I guess what I wonder, though, is which came first - the chicken or the egg? Look at it this way, and forgive the food analogies, but I always use them: when I go to lunch w/people, we don't choose a different restaurant based on their color. When I go shopping with people, we don't split up at the mall and go to different stores, although I have noticed over the past few years that there are stores devoted to clothing the "urban" market. But unless you're in your teens or maybe 20s, you're not dressing like that anyway...and my daughter shops at some of those stores with her friends as often as not. So why split up readers? Are AA authors more likely to draw a larger readership if their books are "separate but equal," to use legal parlance, or, if they got a big push from Harlequin in terms of marketing, could they draw a bigger readership from an entire community? When Kensington started Arabesque, I'm sure part of the problem was that Kensington itself has a rep for being a "second-tier" publisher, and while BET is a big presence in the AA community, it's not a publishing company with decades of history under its belt.

But if it's true that when other publishing houses acquired AA authors, their sales are "far below par when sold alongside white titles," I'm almost willing to put the blame on the publishers and not the readers. It's clear to most of us who've been reading romance for years that unless you're at the top of the heap, sales wise, your publisher isn't going to do much, if anything, to help sell your books. Which means that authors, in addition to writing, must also promote, and if they don't, it's the kiss of death. I know this from watching extremely talented authors who, without promotion, even with great books (one did extremely well in our AAR Aid auctions w/out of print books...out of print because she's currently without a publisher), didn't sell as well as mediocre authors who promoted themselves all over the place.

One thing about incorporating AA authors into existing category lines: because retail stores tend to buy the line rather than the author, and because of subscription sales, those authors would experience greater sales right off the bat. And I'm sure that all it would take for great AA romance authors is exposure to a larger market. But that's just my opinion.

TTFN, LLB

Promotion probably has some to do with it. Black authors who are great promoters (Kayla Perrin comes immediately to mind) have gained more general popularity within the romance community and nice book contracts--but it's very debatable whether their promotion has gained them significantly more white readers.

I think it may be a possibility for standout black authors to incorporate themselves more into the majority mainstream market--but I'm not sure about romance. It's such a fantasy-based genre.

Romance readers are notoriously picky about the characters being *sympathetic,* in other words, similar to them. Romance pubs won't print certain settings or character occupations because they know these books won't sell as well.

Also, most white women don't engage in sexual, romantic relationships with black men (h*ll, gorgeous and brilliant black women are having trouble finding the guys). White women also spend little time imagining themselves as any black woman, even Halle Berry, as far as I'm aware.

It's not the reader's fault so much as merely a reality of our culture, and I don't know if promotional smoozing, contests and author doodads can overcome such cultural obstacles.

And as you wrote, white readers have plenty of great romances to read by authors they're accustomed to--so why bother go there? Frankly, if I were a white romance reader (and I'm neither) I doubt I'd bother unless there were extreme buzz and excitement about some black romance--then I might give it a read to see what's the big deal.

Harlequin experimented last year with top-tier category black romance authors (example, Brenda Jackson) published in their major lines and shelved side by side with their white authors. Avon publishes black authors within their majority romance program and treats black authors the same as white ones. Still there's been no major breakout or crossover by any black romance author to white readers over the years.

Black romances featuring professional middle-class Americans living in Bill Cosby middle-class settings are hardly different from white romance. The only significant difference about our lives from, say, a Jewish person compared to a white Christian, is the experience of being black in this country and that's something that generally isn't touched on within a romance.

So I don't think that necessary excitement and buzz over any romance by a black author--no matter how extraordinary, is coming anytime soon.

If a popular white author writes black characters, their readers will generally read those books, so there is a chance for the excitement and buzz there. But would that be fair? It would further solidify the likely romance majority belief that black authors are inferior to white ones.

There's MUCH resentment within black author ranks when Suzanne Brockman (or any other author) wins rewards for MC or AA romance when their edge simply is that they get read without preconceptions and hundreds of books by black authors don't.

Monica -

This has given me a great topic for next weekend's ATBF. It would really be great to include your comments...you game?

TTFN, LLB

That's fine, Laurie. I'm pleased to see you covering the subject.

Seeing as there's so much love in the room right now, I thought I'd join the debate:

Monica wrote: "Black authors who are great promoters (Kayla Perrin comes immediately to mind) have gained more general popularity within the romance community and nice book contracts--but it's very debatable whether their promotion has gained them significantly more white readers."

Is gaining more white readers the ultimate goal Monica, or is the goal getting more readers period, including increasing the readership of people in the black community?

In England, it's been shown that the percentage of black people who read books, regardless of genre, is waaaay down there, in comparison to White Brits.

I can honestly say that within my group of non-white friends (isn't political correctness a bitch?)I am an anomaly. I read for pleasure.

Not one of my black girlfriends read anything other than celebrity magazines, and it's not like they're uneducated inner city wastrels, (of which England has many). On the contrary, most of them are highly educated professionals (did you really expect anything less? *g*) who as far as I'm concerned should know better.

I can only assume that it would be the same in the States, so maybe, instead of trying to focus on gaining more white readers, it would be a good idea to get more black people to read more books by black authors.

In England, increasing black readership probably wouldn't make any significant in-roads to aid struggling black authors, because there are significantly fewer black people here, but in the US, I can't help but think that if there was an explosion of black people glomming black romance authors, the question of trying to attract more white readers probably wouldn't be as important, and the current shelving practices, would probably become a moot point.

Publishers, like any other for-profit organisations, care about one thing. Numbers. If black romance authors start producing the same kind of numbers that Nora and (God forgive me) Diana Palmer do, then I can't help but think that they wouldn't care if their skins were red, white, yellow, or blue, they'd have to show them the same respect.

Jesus, I'm exhausted, if any of that made sense, I'll be surprised as hell!

Karen and Monica -

Could both of you contact me privately...I'd like to work w/both of you over the next few days towards next Saturday's column. If you know of any Arabesque authors (or other published AA romance authors, for that matter) who might want to participate, I'm always open for a round table discussion, although if we do that, it may take longer to coordinate and probably wouldn't go online until November 1.

TTFN, LLB

Karen, I don't know about Europe, but here in the US, black women read voraciously. The black men I know personally also read and buy books a great deal.

I read a statistic that unfortunately I can't reference now, so I'm not sure of the veracity, that US black women spend more money on books per person than women of any other race.

I do know that there are tons of black book clubs, check out the lit links on my blog roll to the large black reader's sites online. There are independent black book stores and black inner-city folk are buying urban street literature up like hotcakes.

Black authors are pretty much solely supported by black readers except a very few, such as Octavia Butler and Walter Mosley and lit fic authors. When you think of how many of us there are, the amount of money being spent by US blacks on books is very significant--thus the publisher struggle for market supremacy.

Many mainstream black fiction authors such as Bebe Moore Campbell and Connie Briscoe don't cross over that much with white readers either.

I'm pretty much resigned to increasing my readership solely among the black readers. But like many black authors, I'd like my books to be read by people of any race regardless of the color of my skin. However, the reality of it is as long as I write romance and woman's fiction--I doubt that's going to happen. My race only allows me to write for other black readers.

Now, I gotta go out. While shoot you an e-mail later, LLB.

Some other points I was thinking about as I looked at my previous post, that fit in with the general topic.

Most black romance readers, unlike white romance readers, have their favorite white romance authors and read books by authors that aren't of the same race. So white romance authors still get reader dollars from black readers although the same readers solely support black romance authors also.

A roughly similar thing is happening now with urban fiction or street lit as happened with romance. Black romance was ignored for years, it wasn't published at all significantly before 1994 when the huge financial success of Terry McMillan's WAITING TO EXHALE made publishers realize that blacks do read and they jumped on the black romance and woman's fiction bandwagon (Harlequin waited over ten years though).

Before 1994 that there was a black-owned romance publisher, Odyssey Books, and self publishing.

Black, poor inner city people buying books and eagerly reading them for pleasure doesn't fit the pervasive stereotypes of dumb, dangerous Negros, so major publishers have been slow to respond to the demand.

But they are starting to respond now, because they're seeing that self published urban lit is selling big time in the inner cities and making lots of money. Self published authors are getting rich. Mainstream publishers have only just started street lit and urban lines (Kensington just bought Carl Weber's line, S&S bought Zane's line), but many of the top urban authors are reluctant to give 85%+ of their profits to New York, since they are making so much money in self publishing.

With the large white corporate publishers so slow to respond to black book demand, self publishing is an entirely different proposition in the black community. Black people buy books in black retail stores, on street corners, at beauty stores, everywhere. Borders started stocking self published urban lit titles in their inner city stores and are astonished at how well they're selling.

Salon has a recent article about the phenomenon (it irritated me that the author was made to look stupid . . . as if the article writer hardly able to stand that there is a successful, wealthy self published author supported entirely by inner city black dollars).

http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2005/08/15/street_fiction/index.html?sid =1376300

This says how different the white publishing establishment believe blacks to be from the white population. They are only starting to realize the money they can make off all sorts of black readers, even in the poorest, most dangerous areas of the inner cities, because reading for entertainment doesn't align with their notions of black people.

I've read the comments and this is a very interesting topic. I'm a reader and a writer. As a reader, I read AA novels and I also read non-AA novels. I try to persuade my non-AA friends to open up their minds and read others (they read my book, but that's because I'm their friend). As a writer, I write women's fiction and I want both AAs and non-AAs to read my stories. But as of now, I have to be realistic--my primary target audience are AA readers because my main characters are AA. My secondary characters vary. Hopefully, readers will get to a point where they will read a book regardless of the race of the main characters if the storyline is appealing.