It is my contention that Aesop was writing for the tortoise market.
-Anita Brookner
So I’ve been on this quest to begin writing for a mainstream romance reader market. Trouble is – I’m not quite sure what that means exactly since there are many subgenres of romance ranging from paranormal to erotic to suspense. With, I’m sure, many cross-subgenres in-between. Paranormal erotica? Historical suspense? Inspirational time travel? Regency erotica? And what, may I ask, IS “mainstream” anymore?
I’ve been using the word “mainstream” rather loosely in my head to define a group of readers who are not particuarly dedicated to one subgenre or another. My book is a contemporary with historical elements (which I guess makes it cross-subgenre), and my expectation is that it would just be labelled “Romance” on the spine.
Yet all of these labels don’t really do justice to the complexities of the stories romance writers write. They make sense from a marketing perspective and a bookseller’s perspective, but ultimately I think most writers want to write for a reader’s market – that group of people who want to enjoy a good story with sympathetic, flawed characters who overcome their imperfections and obstacles to triumph in the end.
Kind of like the tortoise.
