Fans of Interracial Romance discussion

Why doesn't the publishing world get that interracial relationships are happening and are very prevalent? If they did, I wouldn't have to order almost every irr I read off the internet. I'd be able to go to freaking Wal-mart and buy them. I emailed Tell Harlequin about wanting to see more IR books and I feel like I got a blow off. Here's the email I got:

Thank you for your feed back.

Thank you for your email. Please contact [email protected] as they are the best people to help you access Tell Harlequin. We're looking for love stories between two compelling people. Through our publications, we have found that this emotional impact transcends race and nationality--witness how popular our stories are around the world. Making their race or heritage a focus of the story could tend to detract from the overall emotional response. We certainly consider and publish stories where this element is a part of the story, but it needs to remain a part and not at the forefront as it would if we devoted a separate line to them. Sincerely, The Tell Harlequin Team

Thanks,

Harlequin Newsletter Team.


I emailed them back and said I see what they mean but I would like to see more cross-cultural relationships in the various lines. I think they are dodging the issue. What do you think?

HQN said: "Making their race or heritage a focus of the story could tend to detract from the overall emotional response."

Yes because it was just soooo distracting in 'Scandal' I just couldn't focus on the hero and heroine's plight and mystery. Because their character building heritage and backgrounds that made them who they were just got in the way of all the lovey dovey. /sarcasm

I bet your email was wonderful, Danielle and it appears to have gone over their heads. I see their point but I also notice they're not looking at the big picture so to speak lol.

I posted a request on the forum for more books like 'Scandal' and a possible IR line. Hopefully it'll put another pebble in the pool and cause some ripples but I don't know.

One thing I do find interesting is we DO have a couple of IRs here and there but that's only once in a blue moon and from established authors already working for HQN. They release those and then wait another couple of months to a year to release more. Unless it's in the HQN Presents line where is the Sheikh Billionaire Tycoon's Bedded and Wedded Virgin Secretary Mistress type books (which are ripe for more IRs).

One thing I do find interesting is that part of what they're saying is the same thing we've been saying all along. The focus on the differences and race like we mentioned before are kinda old. We DO want to see new storylines featuring IR couples and the vast majority of them can be explored through different HQN lines. I guess all we can do is write and send if we're writers and ask for more of the titles that do come out if we're readers. Either way, keep plugging the stories away because the audience is there and you're bound to find 'em.

I like your positive approach, but if they are interested in integrating these stories, why are so few being published. You cannot tell me that none of the talented IR authors out there have not submitted stories to Harlequin. I did try to submit a couple of AA stories and got rejected. I have a feeling if I did try to submit one, it would go on the slush pile. But I will still try. BTW I would love to try to submit an IR with a BW/any combination to HP. I have this overwhelming feeling it would get rejected. Sorry to be so negative.

No not at all. I have a feeling if a bunch of authors did the same, they would be rejected. I can't remember which author said so, but one tried to go the traditional way to the big houses, getting an agent sending to editors and all that and they told her to get the statistics to see how many people buy IR stories. They wanted to see if it had a market and if not they weren't interested. No other author has been asked to do this kind of market research before but this one writing IR. I thought that was insanity.

I don't think you're being negative, you're too right because too many authors have said the same thing happened to them. TA Ford who wrote Zoe had zero interest from the houses interested in her story and it was one of the best books I've read in recent time. So yeah it seems like there's a big resistance from the higher ups because they see it as too much of a niche market. But I believe that since the readership is out there and there's a big resistance from the traditional, hey there's always a way around that obstacle to go straight for the readers.

Even if HQN doesn't want to help, they can't deny that there's a growing market out there for these kinds of stories and writers will keep writing them, readers will keep reading and asking for more. Just like the ebook tech revolution, they'll either go along with the rising technology or get left behind.

Rae said: "Even if HQN doesn't want to help, they can't deny that there's a growing market out there for these kinds of stories and writers will keep writing them, readers will keep reading and asking for more. Just like the ebook tech revolution, they'll either go along with the rising technology or get left behind."


I believe they are behind the 8-ball on this, just like they were for AA romances. They saw how well Arabesque was selling and they bought it out and changed the name to Kimani. It would serve them right if they had to do the same thing with an IR line.

I dislike the smarmy tone where they say they don't want a separate line because they want to encourage this within the established lines, but then they don't publish them. I have just about given up on HQN anyway. I feel bad for the fans because they are stuck buying ebooks or buying online instead of in the stores where the IR rightly belong.

What you are saying is very true, Eugenia. Why aim for the outlier who doesn't get interracial dating? The norm is the opposite. Yes, some hardcore people are against it. Most tolerate it if they are not 100% pro it. But how many HQN readers read every book that comes out every month. I get a lot in the mail and there are some I don't read and am not interested in reading. Most I want to read or would read because it's available. Maybe some of those not so gung ho about IRR people would read a great book they got in the mail and fall in love with the genre or author and continue to read more. As you say, good business is anticipating the changes in trends to stay ahead of the times. Harlequin is moving into ebooks so they must realize that many readers are using that technology. I think it is just fear of offending the outliers, as you say, when it comes to not publishing more IRR in the various lines.

Wouldn't it be nice, if we had a company that only puts out interracial books?

Interracial romance has been around for years. Way before slavery too. You can find interracial romance in The Bible.

People need to stop thinking that there is something wrong with interracial pairing. People need to stop trying to make it seems as if God was against interracial marriage, because he wasn't.

Moses was married to a black woman. His siblings had a problem with that. Not God.

That would be kinda cool, Arch. I do find it interesting that Genesis Press used to be the premier place to release IR books. They did so with many ongoing releases, then they started having trouble, was bought out by Kensington and now release once a month, if any. Would be kinda cool to have a pub with that focus and a lot of resources.

That would be cool, but at the same time, I do see the publisher's point of view. There isn't as much of an audience for IR-- not necessarily because there's a lot of hate. It's more that many people can't relate. Let's face it. Actual interracial relationships are more common in the US now, but that's only been recent and many people in relatively homogenous areas *shudder* have little to no exposure to groups outside their own ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and so on.

It wouldn't immediately interest a lot of people, but I think that could change. Get a little taste and who knows what can happen. Literature itself is a kind of exposure, so they could introduce them to IR. Thought follows action in this case, perhaps. There needs to be IR available to audiences for them to decide they like it. The idea may seem unappealing if their heads are filled with preconceptions, but once they see a hot BWWM, as an example, relationship?

And it's like Eugenia said, that's a little weak. A story doesn't have to focus on race, just feature characters that can enrich each others' experiences of the world precisely because they've experienced it differently-- I don't think that's asking too much to write about society as it is.

This whole "I don't see race" racket? Then why not read IR? It doesn't have to be labeled or in a separate line if that's a problem-- although it would help interested readers and considering that the US majority population will no longer be white by 2050 (that's the US Census Bureau talking, not me), I think HQN's behind the curve. Readers will only increase.

And interethnic romance interests me most-- and that's nearly nonexistent (unless I'm missing something). That's certainly relevant to US readers, considering half the country is a Dutch-German-Irish mix, LOL. That would also include race, I think, although IR would undoubtedly sound better to marketers than Interethnic Romance, LOL. Any rate, you can be blind to color, but I'd like to see someone blind to culture. I don't think so.

A lot of non-black people don't read black books, because they say that they can't relate. Some people don't read interracial books, because they say that they can't relate. Well, it's funny how people can read about vampires, shape shifters, etc. I know that they can't tell me that they relate to those characters.

Should I not read a book about two white people, becase I am black? Since, I am not British, should I not read a romance book that have British characters?

The problem is, some people are seeing color and making that an issue. When I read a book, I see people. I'm colorblind when it comes down to race. Yes, I love reading books about BWWM. Yet, I still see the characters as people.

I know that these companies can't honestly believe that a huge percentage of white people are buying their books. Just because an author have a book signing and see only whites attend, doesn't mean that non-white people haven't bought his or her book.

This is a little of topic, so please forgive me for going here.

I remember having a conversation with a woman, in regards to TV shows and how they may have only one black person on the show and the rest of the cast are white. She told me that there are more whites in the world than blacks. Which I don't believe. Anyway, I've told her that the reason why you don't hardly see blacks on TV shows, is because scripts aren't written for blacks. So, therefore, it's hard for a black actor and actress to get a job, when they are trying to get a script that was written for a white person.

It's sad, but it's true, Hollywood thinks that White is the only beautiful race and they truly believe wrongfully that whites is the only people that people want to see on TV.

A gumbo is not a gumbo, without different ingredients.

I want to read books about other races too. I want to see an Asian line, Latino line, etc.

You all raised good points. I think that the key to increasing sales on the IR books are to make them more accessible and more exposed. So I can concede the point that they don't need a separate line, but for the love of heaven, put more IRR in the existing lines. I can count on my fingers how many BWWM interracials or BMWW ir books I've seen in Harlequin lines. I guess my issue is the distributors as much as the publishers. Why don't the distributors get IR books into the bookstores? Yes it's a niche market, but it seems to me that there are quite a few readers of them out there. I mean are there more fans of BDSM erotica? I see plenty of those kinds of books on the shelves at Borders. I find it hard to believe that there aren't as many people who would buy an interracial romance as there are fans of hardcore erotica. The only thing I can guess is that the distributors and publishers need to have a paradigm shift. They need to think outside of the box. Do some research and see how the epresses are actively selling interracial romances. There is a market. It is just untapped. And I believe that there would be more sales but an IRR has to work 5x as hard to find IRR books. That's why I do love the IRR community on Amazon and online in general. We can help each other other. Maybe I need to email Barnes and Noble and Borders and complain. I doubt they'd listen.

I think we are all ambassadors for IRR. I will keep doing my part to expand consciousness of IRR. I try to suggest books that are interracial when someone asks about a certain theme. Because at the end of the day, a love story is a love story. I am doing my part to get various readers interested in IR. I write my reviews and my reviews don't focus on race. They focus on why I loved this story that happens to be interracial. I have had some of my goodreads friends who are not the 'target audience' if you will forgive the term, get interested in an IR because I liked it so much. I do see that some of my friends on Goodreads do read interracial stories, and it's no big deal to them. So there is a market. It's so frustrating because I don't want to see the print market die for these books. We should have the option to read IRR in print just as easily and as affordable as we do to read ebooks.

New User, like you, I am definitely a fan of any inter-ethnic relationship. I love seeing the culture and ethnic exchange. I love diversity. This life would be extremely boring if there was one culture and one background.

Danielle,
Thank you so much for inviting me to this discussion. I know that I have tried several times to submit some of my books to non ebook publishers and I usually get the same answers. We like your writing and feel that you have a lot of potential. But at this moment we don't know how to market your type of romance book. Or I'll get the comment my female lead needs to have more drama in her life. I was also told that if I was to make the race of the two characters a bigger problem in my book I could send it back. I know that some people might still have a problem seeing a black woman on the cover of a book with a white male. It could be so many things that makes it hard to get a lot of IR book out there in bookstores. However, I'm going to stay positive that will get to see more and more IR books in the future next to Nora Roberts and Diana Palmer on the bookshelves in the bigger stores.

I like your positive attitude, Marie. I will try to stay positive as well. You have some good points, although it is a bit distressing to see how little things have changed in some respects. Why does a Black heroine have to have more drama? I think that sounds like they want a stereotype of what they think a Black woman is. What a shame that someone would say that. As for race being a bigger issue, I'm pretty tired of reading just those types of books. I do hope that things will change.

Yeah, I know there are a lot of readers for whom IR is not an issue. To them, a good book is a good book, but when I hear, for example, about people putting down a book because a black woman's on the cover, that a black woman's skipped for a role in a film because of race, etc., then I have to wonder, is it because they're still considered "other," another group, or what?

And you're right, Marie. There has been some improvement, so maybe that will continue in the future.

That's so true. I think there's a wonderful shift going on with the new media that I'm noticing. A lot of authors now have the ability to reach their readers directly and are able to bring them the kind of stories they want without much 'filtering' from the publishers. Even if one goes through a publisher with certain stories, they can still offer extra goodies and help spread the word and gain interest in stories that aren't offered or are ignored in the mainstream.

There may be obstacles standing in the way yes, but from my experience, there are always ways around those obstacles. :-) Like D said, forums like these are one big advantage (not to mention fun) and in a way we're generating and continuing our own interest here with all the titles shared.

new_user wrote: "That would be cool, but at the same time, I do see the publisher's point of view. There isn't as much of an audience for IR-- not necessarily because there's a lot of hate. It's more that many peop..."


But can't it be argued that there isn't much of an audience for IR books because the potential audience doesn't know such books exist?

I myself only happened to stumble onto the genre by accident. I was doing some searches on Amazon and the At Last novel by Lisa G Riley popped up.

I hang out in Borders and B&N at least 3 days per week and it's not as if I can go to one area in the store and find them. Borders is however about the best for this. They have them classified as part of African American books. I don't agree with this classification but at least I know where to look. But this also means that their exposure are automatically limited.

I hate to be "conspiracy sister" but it seems as though marginalizing IR books might be part of the master plan to doom their success. If I don't act as "conspiracy sister," I would assume the bookstore thinks there is no audience.

As you see above, I don't agree with the African American fiction section. I think it should be mixed in with the other fictions, and some stores do this. I bet the sales are better, too.

Before, I have even read an interracial book, I've written my first BWWM story back in 1994.

Same here. I always envisioned interracial stories and I was jazzed to see there were some in print.

Justine wrote: "But can't it be argued that there isn't much of an audience for IR books because the potential audience doesn't know such books exist? "

Yeah, Justine, I completely agree. That's what I meant when I said that readers need exposure to these types of books in order to decide whether or not they like them. Right now, they're not given the opportunity. The publishers take the decision out of their hands and later, the bookstore merchandising does. (That bugs everyone; bookstores need a clue, LOL.)

When I read enough romance I realized there was a huge void; I never saw anything but white characters, LOL. It's like that's all that existed, LOL.

I'm with "conspiracy sister" (does that make me conspiracy "co-sister"?) in that it's marginalized off the bat. I've heard stories from authors trying to sell their IR works that editors keep telling them no one is buying, it's not a big moneymaker also asking if they can change the race of the heroine. One author even had an editor ask the author to go get the numbers on how many IRs have sold to see if its worth publishing.

Now I know publishing is a business and it's all about numbers but I've never heard of this happening before. SF Romance is a niche but no editor has ever asked the author to go get numbers before they consider the book. I think it's indeed marginalized.

Like NU says, the publishers take the decisions out of the readers hands and don't even consider a good story as that. They mostly see one thing and then start to freak out.

Gatadelafuente (Danielle) wrote: "Same here. I always envisioned interracial stories and I was jazzed to see there were some in print."

Same here. :-) I picked one up at the bookstore from Genesis Press back in its heyday and from then on I was always on the lookout for more Love Spectrum books. Haven't seen an upswing like that since. :-(

Where can we write these publishers? They need to survey the consumers and see what we are looking for. They need to stop making it seems as if people don't want to read interracial stories, but a lot of people do.

What do they want? A log of what race bought a certain book? Maybe they should have this question asked, when a certain book is scanned. Question: What race are you?

How would they feel, if black people stop buying books period?

Oh they would definitely suffer indeed!

Yeah I was wondering the same thing. How can you log something like that? Sigh.

Most of the big pubs would be hard to get in touch with unless it's about their current releases. The ones to target would be Harlequin and Avon/Harpercollins since they're the big hitters in the romance industry. Avon has guidelines for AA romance btw, would be cool to see them move into IRs. Even with their historicals. So far the only print IRs I've seen mainly are from HQN and Kensington.

Harlequin needs to realize that a lot of black people buy their books. They need to not only hear our voices, but acknowledge what we are saying.

I'm not familiar with Kensington. I might have some books by them and not know it. They need to recognize us as well. Avon too.

Indeed. Danielle tried to drop them a note about that but they dodged the issue a bit. I tried to send a note via the message boards but not sure if it'll get through. I imagine they think most of their black readers would stick to the Kimani line but that line doesn't offer IR as much as it does mainly AA romances.

Kensington did Sara Reinke's Dark Thirst (paranormal bwwm IR) and Kate Rothwell's Somebody to Love (historical bwwm IR). I have an inkling their Zebra line was to be IR but I think that may have fell through.

Both HQN and Kensington are going through some major overhaulings with new editors and directions so I don't know what kind of changes will be implemented in the new future. Or what kind of books we'll be getting out of them soon.

Well, all I know is that we need more IR books. Until then, I guess I will continue to write my own IR stories.

Well hopefully with the ginormous amount of interracial ebooks selling (I am guessing, could be wrong), the publishers will wake up. I know harlequin is trying to get a foot in the ebook market. You would think they do have some people doing research, but the researchers might not be very good at their jobs, or just telling the big-wigs what they want to hear.

Hopefully seeing movies like Lakeview Terrace and Something New will put a bug in there ear. I do feel that the publishing industry does pay attention to what kinds of movies are released and their successes.

Rae wrote: "I'm with "conspiracy sister" (does that make me conspiracy "co-sister"?) in that it's marginalized off the bat. I've heard stories from authors trying to sell their IR works that editors keep telli..."

How much money does it take to start printing books etc. Perhaps I can do this and provide an avenue to IR writers as soon as I win the lotto

Arch wrote: "Where can we write these publishers? They need to survey the consumers and see what we are looking for. They need to stop making it seems as if people don't want to read interracial stories, but a ..."

Well perhaps we should stop buying their books. Sometimes the only way to get the message across is to hit where it hurts. And nowhere hurts more than voting with your pockets. I actually adopted that quite some time ago

Gatadelafuente (Danielle) wrote: "Well hopefully with the ginormous amount of interracial ebooks selling (I am guessing, could be wrong), the publishers will wake up. I know harlequin is trying to get a foot in the ebook market. Y..."


See, I’m not so optimistic. Judith Smith Levin wrote a series of detective books with an IR couple that's just to die for. In addition, the mystery aspect of the stories all had me at the edge of my seat. And she cannot find a publisher!!!!!!
From where I'm typing, they are better than any Nora Roberts or Lora Leigh books. Yet, she cannot get anyone to publish the continuing stories!!!!!!!!! How bizarre is that!!!?!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!

Better than LL? *skeptical* LOL.

Justine wrote: "Arch wrote: "Where can we write these publishers? They need to survey the consumers and see what we are looking for. They need to stop making it seems as if people don't want to read interracial st..."

I feel you Justine.

Eugenia wrote: "I think Judith Smith Levin is in talks with someone I know from the amazon.com website from Parker Publishing to get her series in print again. I think, now don't go off saying that's true cause I ..."

Last I heard, she was going to publish them herself