William Maltese has posted an opinion piece about writing M/M romance for different audiences – male and female. In my opinion some M/M books that are written by women and those written by men are different, with female writers including more emotional content in their books. However, I have read books by female M/M writers who got down and dirty and took me through backrooms, public restrooms, and parks in their one hand reads® which are no different to similar stories written by male writers for a mostly male audience. William does have a point about the majority of M/M books being tailored to meet the expectations of female readers, after all, they represent the main target group of publishers and writers of these books. Here’s William’s take on the whole writing for women and writing for men business.
I have been noticing something, over the last few years, which causes me, at this time, to make comment upon an aberration of gay fiction which has occurred since I
first began writing it. (See Drewey Wayne Gunn’s THE GOLDEN AGE OF GAY FICTION
http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=GOLDAGE1
or my web-site at
http://www.williammaltese.com
for insight into my literary beginnings).
Namely, many new writers and readers of the genre — namely of the female persuasion — seem to have entered the market place with the preconceived notion, incorrect, that real m/m love and romance and real m/f love and romance proceed basically along the same lines, and that any m/m book that portrays otherwise is somehow lacking, off the mark, and has an author who has somehow gotten “it” all wrong — when, actually, quite the opposite is probably closer to the truth.
A quick aside here by way of assurance that this isn’t a tirade delivered by me to bemoan the entry of women into the m/m marketplace, as readers, as writers, and as reviewers. I have many close friends in the m/m publishing business who are women and whom I love dearly and who I’ve come to appreciate as being stellar contributors to the genre. I’m of the belief that anything that expands a genre’s popularity and its fan base is a good thing, not a bad, for all involved; and, I’ve always been a true believer that, if only given the chance, and/or if only giving themselves the chance, women would be just as turned on by man-on-man sex as men have for so long been turned on by gals going at it.
What I merely want to point out, here, is that women writing m/m for the enjoyment of women readers … in fact, men writing m/m for the enjoyment of women readers … will likely be required to write differently than those same authors would write m/m for the enjoyment of male readers. This is not a bad thing, any more than it’s necessarily a good thing; it just is what it is. The truth of the matter is that the female libido is wired differently than that of the male; what turns a woman on, by way of love and romance, isn’t necessarily the equivalent of what does it for a man. We would all, writers and readers and reviewers, alike, be far more content, happy, and understanding if we recognized that fact from the get-go and didn’t try to pretend, wish, or actually believe that it’s otherwise.
Frankly, I’m getting rather weary of just how many women reviewers (and there does seem to be a plethora of them popping up, these days), are criticizing and bemoaning some male authors of m/m books for not providing them with “m/m romances” but, rather with just “plain old fashioned m/m sex-for-sex’s sake” — as if many a male reader’s ideal of m/m romance and love isn’t sex-for-sex’s sake rather than the romance and love loaded down with all of the accumulated emotional baggage that women are more apt to attach to it.
Ladies, most guys, although there are exceptions to any rule, do not need a long lead-in, let alone emotional attachment, to think themselves in love, or believe themselves actually romantically involved, especially if it’s just for a brief moment in the back room of some bar, or hurried sex with some stranger in a dark park. All of the early m/m books, written entirely for an initially total male audience, were wham-bam-thank-you-man dissertations, and not long-and-lengthy courtships a la Harlequin that only saw sexual consummation realized at book’s end. So, the next time you find yourself with a book in hand that takes that seemingly sex- for-sex’s sake viewpoint, as regards m/m love and romance, do, please, try to remember that while it might not be playing to your specific interpretation of m/m love and romance, it is likely playing to the interpretation of some guy. So rather than you moaning and groaning and complaining that the author, rather than you, doesn’t know about what he’s talking, you should really just move on to a book more geared to your own way of thinking — of which there are more and more out there — and quit trying to label only your interpretation of m/m romance and love as the only interpretation of m/m love and romance.
I mean, if my book CONSPIRACY OF RAVENS is sub-titled, “A One-Hand Read®”, what is there about one-hand read® that would have some reader convinced that I
should be providing her with something other than the male-desired short-on-emotional-involvement m/m love and romance that I’ve blatantly advertised?
I’m thoroughly convinced that more readers and reviewers would be satisfied with what they’ve read if there wasn’t a tendency in the market place for women writers of m/m love and romance books to have pseudonyms that are masculine in nature and, thereby, confuse the reader; guys who think they’re getting a wham-bam-thank-you-man book, written by a real man, for a man, end up with an m/m Harlequin-type romance written by a woman; women readers, who would best appreciate an m/m Harlequin-type romance, pick up a book by a real man, for a man, and find themselves dragged through back rooms, parks, truck stops, and funky alleys, for seemingly quick and meaningless sex which is actually sufficiently loving and meaningful mainly only for the men for whom the book was really intended.
I could understand this penchant for female authors assuming male pseudonyms, if this was a time wherein women were seeking to enter a genre entirely dominated by male readers and, thereby risked being shunned by readers for not being male-specific. Willingly, I was published as Anna Lambert and Willa Lambert in my halcyon days of writing m/f romances for the likes of Harlequin, because, it was genuinely believed, even advertised, that such books were for women written by women. Even today, most m/f romance readers being women, a man might feel himself at a disadvantage in trying to write a book appealing to that audience. But in m/m love and romance fiction, wherein the majority of readers have become women, not gay men, not being gender-specific, by way of authorship of a book, is downright confusing to the reader, and actually often disallows readers the ability to find the kind of novel that best appeals to his or her interpretation of m/m love and romance. As a man, I would likely be more drawn to LOVING BROTHERS written by Chad Stuart than to LOVING STUDS written by Suzy Cue, if what I wanted was just to read a quick sexual romp. Likewise, a woman reader, less appreciative of random sex, would likely be more drawn to the latter. However, if Suzy Cue is writing LOVING BROTHERS as Chad 
Stuart, I’d possibly be as disappointed, in my reading of that book, as any woman reader wanting a Harlequin-type m/m romance would find herself if she ended up reading a book written by a real man for a man.
So, in summation … if you are a man or a woman and want to read a plot-lead m/m novel, wherein emotional interaction takes precedence … if you are a man or a woman and want to read a sex-lead m/m novel, wherein emotional interaction is at a minimum … do a little research on whom (man or woman) wrote the book you’re tempted to buy and what the available blurbs have to say about the book in question. You might still end up disappointed, on occasion, but I guarantee you’ll be less so, as an informed reader, than you’ll ever be if you pay less attention.
Oh, I totally agree, William. Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus–so to speak–when it comes to what we want in romance and even erotica. Even as a female writer of gay fiction, trying to weave a romantic story about two men, I find that my female readers are usually the ones to want more details, more conversation, more history. I’m trying to break my habit of a long lead-in to sex, but a female reader might actually think it was too rushed and unromantic whereas a male reader would probably take it for what it was and find it more realistic.
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I also learned through reading that (some) gay men are into more ‘down and dirty’ fiction. What I mean by that is exampled in your post. For the sake of sex men might do it in a public restroom that is less than spiffy, or in a back alley, or the back of a pick-up. In a story I read not too long ago, one guy was being serviced from a glory-hole in a restroom and some female readers were more squicked out about sanitation, than aroused by the mental imagery offered in the masterful writing. Men also seem to be more into body-smells/natural odors or what I think is called raunch. Personally, I can enjoy a ‘wham-bam thank you sir’ book just as much as a romance, but I do prefer more romantic reads. All those years of reading Johanna Lindsey, I guess. 🙂
SAGE: Thanks for the check-in, especially since you and I tend to be on the same page. I’ve always found male readers more turned on by the down-and-dirty, let’s-get-to it; the sanitation issue, as expressed by women readers, seems right on the mark and doesn’t surprise me. While I have no difficulty writing and enjoying romantic plot-lead novels, having written three Harlequin SuperRomances (to international acclaim), and having just had released my mainstream Aussie romantic/adventure DARE TO LOVE IN OZ from Savant Press ( http: https://www.createspace.com/3407866 ) I just wish women would realize that men writing for men don’t necessarily always put women’s sensibilities in the forefront.
SEAN: Certainly, I don’t expect everyone to accept what I say as gospel, and certainly there are men out there who are turned on by long-lead-in “notion of” romance (otherwise gay marriages wouldn’t exist). That said, I merely wish more readers and reviewers were aware that there are some men (among whom I include myself) who sometimes don’t want to read about long-drawn out courtships and would prefer that the characters just get down and dirty … and there are some writers who write that and shouldn’t be criticized because of it.
ERASTES: Certainly you misread my blog if you thought I referred to all men as excluding romanticism from their sex lives and from their reading material. I’m merely saying that many women readers, in their influx into the m/m market, fail to realize, when coming across books that don’t meet their personal expectations of romance, that the fault may be more in their selection of the book than in the book which may very well have merely been aimed at another part of the m/m market.
TEDDYPIG: The issue is merely my wishing that every reader, writer, reviewer, male or female, would realize what kind of book they want and go find it, rather than moaning and groaning when a book that seems not to meet their expectations may merely be geared toward a different kind of m/m reader.
ANGELIA: Do be aware that there are books out there, by men, who do have plots. My BEYOND MACHY, TUSKS, and SNAKES all come to mind. On the other hand, there are books of mine that are more sex-lead. I’m just asking people out there to recognize there are all sorts of books aimed at different m/m readers and one book isn’t necessarily a “bad” book just because it doesn’t meet one reader’s expectations of what a gay “romance” should be.
ALEKSANDR: My whole point is, I don’t think readers DO do the research they should to find the kind of gay book they want, more likely just assuming that their idea of romance is the universal standard. If they did, there would be less readers reviewers criticizing a book as having so little plot, so much sex, if the book in question was ALWAYS aimed toward a reader who wants less plot and more sexual content — and what’s more clearly stated as much (aka one-hand read®) on the cover.
TAMI: I do think that we do have a tendency to “run” with our own kind, because, while promiscuous sex, among the people I know, isn’t what it used to be, I really don’t know a majority of gay men who really hold out for settling down with their “one and only” in suburbia.
VICTOR: Always a pleasure.
SEAN KENNEDY: I’m not sure there isn’t a penchant for rape fantasy, among some people — men and women, gay and straight. The key word, here, is “fantasy”. I’m always surprised by how vivid a person’s fantasy life can be and usually is. And I don’t think anyone should be criticized for anything they may like to include in it.
ALEX BEECROFT: If we could all get people to research what it is an author can provide, and does provide, we’d all be better off.
LADY M: I’m not saying men like ONLY promiscuous sex. I’m not saying women ONLY like sappy romance. What I AM saying is that there are different books aimed at different readers — from the get-go, and I just wish readers and reviewers would recognize that and find their kind of preferred book, among what’s available, and quit moaning and groaning about books that weren’t geared for their preferences in the first place.
ALLY: I suspect men who have long been looking for romance, in their reading material, are more apt to write a fan letter than those guys who merely enjoy one-hand reads®. Don’t ask me why I think that. I just do.
JEN: I know for a fact that both men and women can write m/m fiction, and can do it very well. My problem is mainly with readers and reviewers who don’t seem to realize that there are different strokes for different folks, and it’s simply a matter of finding a book that fits what you want. If the book you pick doesn’t fit what you wanted, it isn’t necessarily the authors fault as much as it very well may be yours for not having taken the time to find the kind of book you wanted.
The thing is, ROMANCE, by any definition you care to use, contains more than sex for sex’s sake. It contains development of a love relationship, and (in most definitions) a happy ending — either “happy for now” or “happy ever after.” Sex for its own sake is either porn or erotica, and I’m not splitting that particular hair right here. The point is, there IS a difference. If a reader/reviewer picks up a book labeled as a romance and finds NO development of a love relationship, nothing but pure sex for its own sake, he or she is right to complain, no matter how beautifully written that hot & sexy book might be, because it has been mislabeled. If, on the other hand, he or she picks up a book marked clear as day “one hand read” (and I think it’s pretty obvious what that means!) or something marked with equal clarity as erotica or porn, then that reader/reviewer has zero cause to bitch about it if they do not get the romance they wanted.
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I can’t see any reason to make it about the sex of the writer or the reader.
I’m sorry, but I can’t help thinking that different people have different ideas of what “romance” is, and just because one person might think something is erotica or porn, I’m thinking someone else might find it romantic. Can’t someone really love someone for just an evening … or does it really require a long lead-in and a life-time commitment thereafter?
Interesting question (and I’m replying before reading further down the page (78 comments so far!).
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I don’t know if I’m qualified to answer as I have no experience in this area, but I think someone can be in “lust” with someone for one evening, but maybe “love” takes/lasts a little longer … not necessarily a life-long commitment, but a little bit of commitment none-the-less.
*shrugs* I respectfully disagree, seeing we all seem to be speaking in generalisations – although m/m romance does have a large female audience, there are still many men who are reading them as well. And they obviously turn to them because they want something more than ‘stroke fiction’. And I can only speak for myself, but when I write I am not writing for a male or female audience, but really to tell the story I want to tell (and that makes me sound like such a wanker). I think changes in audience will become more apparent due to this boom in m/m books – men who maybe wanted more in the way of ‘romance novels’ now have access to them because they’re available and out there where they were maybe rarities before.
Just wanted to add: I don’t want to be using generalizations as Sean said. Of course, not ALL men want ‘stroke books’. Certainly us female authors have a healthy dose of male readers and male authors have a healthy dose of female readers, and I have read books from male authors that were saccharine sweet with the romance I almost got a toothache. I do think that more male readers than female readers would enjoy grittier writing, minus the romantic elements.
I couldn’t agree less. I will agree that this is your experience, William. But not all men are like you – just as not all women are the same and like me. You can’t say that all men like this and that women like THIS or THAT. That we all like pink. That we all like shopping. Or phones. Or like loads of foreplay or cuddles afterwards. It’s nonsense generalisation. Similarly with gay men. I know many gay men who (whilst they still have one night stands (as do women!)) who want, need, and HAVE loving, long-courtship, relationships. They want the GDM, the Harlequin dream, even if we (by that I mean both sexes) know that it doesn’t exist. It begins when you sink in his arms…
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And ends with your arms in his sink.
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This ties in with my post of tomorrow, actually–because I’m talking about readers letters and how 99.99 of my letters are from gay males and how they love the romantic elements in my books and how thrilled they are to have found gay historical romance.
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I’m with Sean Kennedy on this one. Gay romance (in such large quantities) is still new on the market–and from what I’ve seen men are finding it and liking it. There’s bound to be stigma in doing so –look at the crap that female romance readers have always got–men will probably hide “His Regency Prince” under the bed for shame of reading it, but they are reading it. Famously, The Tin Star is a firm male favourite as the bookshops attest.
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I don’t expect differences in gay fiction/romance. Yes, there are writers who write more porny than others – but I don’t assume they are male. Pat Brown among other women writes some of the steamiest “let’s get at it, what’s your name” graphic stuff around–Vincent Virga, Mark R Probst, Max Pierce and Donald L Hardy among other men write the sweetest soppiest love stories out there.
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I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again until I’m blue in the face. There are no generalisations.
LOL! I should’ve read all the earlier comments before posting my 2p. Same here. After all, didn’t Scott & Scott start the Romentics imprint *because* they were writing gay romance and couldn’t find anyone to publish it? And I do believe that’s an m/m partnership, though I don’t do zipper checks.
I definitely got that book was Erotica (One Hand Read sorta says it all.) Victor so maybe that was the problem the reviewer wanted a Romance which could have caused a misunderstanding.
I know women have been writing some dang steamy “no holds barred” Raunchy Erotica too for a while now so maybe I don’t understand what the exact issue is.
You’ve put into words why I don’t knowingly buy erotica written by men. (Sometimes, as in anthologies, it’s unavoidable.) It is not my style. Of course, half the time the stuff I read by women isn’t to my taste either.
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I want a story. The sex should be there but it should be entirely in service to the plot. If I’m reading 25 pages of you, I want plot, not just an extended sex scene. Ditto 250 pages. The sex can be raunchy or brutal, but there must be a story.
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Let’s be honest, I’m much more likely to pick up a dvd of Queer as Folk or Love! Valour!Compassion! than Frat Piss (much lauded tho’ it is on a certain gay radio show). I think most women are the same. It would certainly explain the “No body wastes” rule that every pub has.
You might try Mark Probst’s “The Filly” (which is actually young adult) or Donald Hardy’s upcoming “Lovers Knot.” (Yeah, I’m plugging my Tangled Web’s m/m companion release, but Don’s one of those gents who favors the fade-to-black, and he’s written a good ghostly historical.)
I disagree, William, on many levels. “Male” and “female” approaches are stances we take while writing. These are almost like genres, rather than biological necessity or even destiny. Literary fiction, horror, porn, it’s all genre. Many readers enjoy both – sex for sex’s sake, or long courtships with lots of unresolved sexual tension.
You mention Harlequin as the blueprint for female-centred erotica/romance – but even they range from sweet to sexy, and there are so many women writing PWP, and so many male readers enjoying plot with their sex, that I don’t feel the stereoptype holds up.
I would assume people do their research (reading excerpts and following recommendations) anyway. I keep hearing “word-of-mouth” is the number one reason why people buy books anyway, massive marketing campaigns notwithstanding.
Anybody who buys a book blindly runs the danger of disappointment. Same with gay fiction. If you buy a book by Colm Toibin for the gay sex (because he’s a gay male), you’ll be sorely disappointed with the four or five paragraphs strewn across a 280-300 page literary novel.
Hmmm. I don’t think any of my gay friends who’ve had nameless faceless encounters with guys would say that was romance or they were in love with the guy. There’s nothing wrong with sex just for fun, without knowing the person’s name for that matter if it works for you but I don’t think there is any illusion of love or romance in that, for men OR women who take part in that kind of activity.
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We’ve had this discussion amongst some of my gay friends and the young ones (20’s vs 40’s) seem to think that the gay stereotype of sleeping with anyone and as much as possible is not so relevant anymore. They want relationships, monogamy, HEA, kids, the white picket fence and a house in the suburbs. Maybe I just hang with a group of people who have similar values, hence it colours my view of what gay men want.
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I do agree though that the trick is to find authors who’s style and format you like, whether it be romance or one hand reads, and then read those. Reviewers can help. If I only want romance I appreciate it if a reviewer tells me that’s not what a book is so I’m not disappointed when I buy something and it’s not what I expect. Blurbs don’t always make it clear. There is a market for each type. Personally I’m at a point where I prefer more romance to raunchy sex (mind you combining the two works great 🙂 ) thus I choose authors I know can provide me with that.
First, people do get William and me confused. My email about this blog said that William Banis was blogging today. Gave me quite a start: my dad, William Banis, has been dead for many years.
As to the points William (Maltese) makes, yes and no. I for one like a bit of romance, and it will surprise everyone to know I don’t like the steamy parts, I generally skip over them when reading. And Erastes is right, there are plenty of women who like it down and dirty. But I agree that the confusion in names probably causes some confusion in reading. And, yes, men and women do tend to write differently, though I don’t think it’s necessarily a question of romance vs sex. There’s the kind of sex, too. Women have been inclined (okay, Erastes, I know it’s a generalization) since the Victorian era, when they were expected to be chaste, to enjoy the rape fantasy (because it relieves them of responsibility) far more than men do. Dracula, biting the sleeping woman’s neck, making her his slave. The Shiek, carrying her off on his steed to his desert tent, where she can have all sorts of fun and feel not a pang of guilt – she is still innocent. The Bodice Rippers of the 70 may have been the last gasp of this kind of thinking, but it still shows up a lot in books written by women; not so often by men. For me, it’s always a tip off. Or, if a man writes that kind of scene between two men, it’s generally from the POV of the raper, not the rapee. Women generally do it in reverse. But that’s just one for instance.
Interesting blog. Would be intriguing to look at other differences…
Victor
Oops sorry Victor I type Victor in my reply. I Need More Coffee!
My bad I apologize.
“Enjoy the rape fantasy”?
That’s just opening a whole ‘nother can of worms.
I’m pretty sure there’s a difference between ‘seduction fantasy’ and ‘rape fantasy’, as very few people would want to fantasize about actual rape.
This is the very reason why I have a gender neutral pen name. Oh no! Readers can’t instantly fit me into their neat gender divide pigeonholes? Well, good, that’s why I chose the name in the first place. Maybe that way they won’t be able to prejudge me because of my sex. They might have to judge my writing by actually reading it! There’s an outrageous thought.
I agree with Sean and Erastes here. Not all the women seek heart-breaking, sweet, sappy, Harlequin-like romances. I know that for a fact, because I’m one of them and I know others who are like me. And I know that there are many men out there who want more than just a ‘stroke fest’ in their romances. Additionally, there is no reason why a story describing hot, explicit physical, MALE relationship can’t also be deeply emotional. Victor Banis’ books come to mind. Steamy as Coming Home, for example, was, it got me in tears by the end of it. Hardly a sappy read, though.
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As a reader, I primarily look for a good story. I have never looked at the cover to see if the book was written by a man or a women. In fact, I don’t know how many times I got the writer’s gender wrong, simply because if the book is good – I really don’t care.
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That said, there ARE ‘chicks with dicks’ books, stories which mask in m/m or gay romance or whatever you like to call it, when they are really het stories with two guys. But, that’s a whole different story. ~_^
I think this is more of a labeling issue from publishers than a gender issue. Anyone who picks up something clearly marked a “one handed read” and expects romance deserved what they get and has no reason to complain, IMO. Read the label, people!
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Like Erastes, the vast majority of my fan mail comes from gay men. They all tell me the exact same thing: thanks for the romance. Thanks for the emotion. Thanks for reflecting this or that facet of my life back at me. They usually mention the sex too, LOL, but the main thrust (har) of the mail I get is nearly always the romance. I can only conclude — based on my own experience, which is all I have and which is admittedly limited — that at least some gay men out there want to read about love and romance and happy endings. Just like at least some women out there **raises hand without shame** like to read hot nasty porn sometimes as well as romance.
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In any case, this is another good discussion so I thank you for starting it!
(yes, Wave, I like to argue, shut up!)
Ally
Why does this have anything to do with me? 😀 This is William’s opinion.
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I’m just waiting to see your guest blog topic. 😀
Heh, thanks 🙂 I have an idea. I think I might run it by you first…
I agree with you here, Ally. It’s about labelling the books correctly – something the mainstream romance publishers generally do very well. Is it romance, is it erotica, or is it gay fiction? Of course they are fuzzy categories and things corss over and there are many subgenres, but the labelling is going to tell me more about what to expect from the book than what sex the author is. To make an assumption about the book based on that would make me sexist and liable to be too often surprised and/or disappointed.
Sometimes the labeling is misleading due to the fact that religionist readers tend to pressure bookstores, chat lists, and even reviewers to label anything GLBT as “adult only.” M/M books are only welcome on Coffeetime’s “Erotic” list, for instance. I’m not saying this to slam them; the vast majority of their readers are into m/f and they do a great job of making writers of gay romance feel welcome… but this is one of the elements that leads to mislabeling. I’d give Charlie Cochrane’s Cambridge mysteries to an intelligent young-adult reader, but I’d probably not give my own Walking Wounded to anyone under 16.
Labeling isn’t the whole issue, though. Most sites have excerpts, and a reader can almost always find a contact addy for a writer, if it comes to that. I don’t think writers can be blamed for a reader’s preconception or unwillingness to check things out.
Heh, my CJ professor would have my head if he ever heard me speaking in generalizations. I certainly regret not putting ‘some’ more often in my hasty first post.
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Wow, some interesting responses here got me thinking, that it is not the penname that needs work, but the description of the book that should be more thorough. Certainly, the addition of labels like HFN, HEA, multiple-partners, and such, clue the readers into what they are getting into before they read it. I’d never judge a book by the author’s penname and if male or female readers pick up a book because they think it is written by a guy or girl then perhaps they should think about changing the way they go about choosing reads, because as so many here have pointed out it is just as possible for them to pick up a book heavy on the romance by a male author as it is to pick up one by a female author nowadays. Call a spade a spade as you said. If its a stroke fiction then call it that,(well, not in those exact words probably, but label it as not a romance) and then the readers who chose to purchase it anyways have no one to blame but themselves.
As a female writing under a male pseudonym, I often wonder if it is obvious that it is a woman writing this story or not. I was hoping that using a male name would attract the male audience as well as female readers. It will be interesting to see what, if any, feedback I get when my first ebook is published in a couple of weeks… As a reader, I buy any and all m/m books, and while some authors have definite styles (like William and Victor), I usually have a hard time determining who is male and who is female from the story. And I do try! Mostly because I want my stories to appeal to both sexes.
Hi Jen S
As an avid reader I can tell about 90 – 95% of the time whether the writer is male or female, and while usually all the angst and emo in books written by women are dead giveaways, there are other clues. I’ll give you one – some female writers of contemporary M/M just can’t seem to get away from all the housekeeping chores they make the men in their books do. 😀 That’s just one thing you might want to avoid in your writing – although not all men are slobs. One exception to this rule is Jordan Castillo Price whose men live in pig pens and she’s very proud of that. 😀
O_O
Soooo… if you didn’t know I was of the womanly persuasion, what would you think of me, based on that? Because if it wasn’t for my hubby, OMG. You would NOT want to come into my house, trust me. I’m a pig. And I tend to not much think about chores for my mens when I’m writing.
Interesting…
I think it’s a case of transference. If my perfect guy would cook and clean then writing a story about the perfect guy would have him cooking and cleaning. I only thank god that my Mom comes to visit once a year or I’m not sure what kind of chaos my house would fall into. LOL I need to find me a gay guy who cleans I guess because I’ve sucked at finding straight ones who will, or a slave. One or the other. Or both.
You never met my friend A who betas for me. He and his long-time partner have two cats and a spotless Persian carpet in their living room, while I have a constant losing battle with pet hair. We chat about our pets and trade recipes… but we also trade home-rehab laments about building codes that force alterations. It isn’t either-or. After all the stereotypes gays and lesbians have been locked into over the years, it’s disappointing to see people still being put into boxes, even with the best of intentions.
Ally
You’re like Jordan, in the 5 – 10%. You’re both pigs.:) A couple of days ago I had to comment in a review where the authors did transfer some of their female characteristics to the men in the area of housekeeping, and this book was about college guys living in a frat house. 😀 How realistic is that?
Oink oink. LOL.
Well, Tam, it’s buyer beware when it comes to finding a gay guy to clean house for you. That’s one of the gay genes I didn’t get, along with hair, makeup, and quite a few others – my house is a disaster area
On other subjects, I get fan mail from guys and gals both, about equally (and thanks, LadyM, for the endorsement). I’m split on the question of non-gender specific bylines. I wrote gothic romances for years as Jan Alexander. These days I use V.J.Banis on my straight material and Victor J. on the gay – mostly for the convenience of readers. But I”m not honestly convinced it makes much difference today. Who cares, really, what Pat Brown’s gender is (well, I’m sure it matters to some, but I dont’ believe it does to her readers) Shakespeare had it right, as usual The Plays’ the thing.
Victor
I know, it’s such a stereotype Victor. Seems most of the gay guys I know don’t have that gene either. Sigh. Oh well, I’ll keep working on the slave angle. That’s why I had a kid but it’s not working out so well for me. 😉
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There was a discussion on Good Reads as to whether some authors were male or female and most people don’t really care but they want to know for some reason. They don’t like it when authors fudge around with words in bios like “The author has 3 cats and lives in Jersey.” They want it to say “She has 3 cats and lives in Jersey” or he, whatever the case may be. Personally for me I don’t really care, I don’t think about it much but for some people they really want to KNOW the gender, even if it doesn’t influence their decision to buy a book or not. Curiousity? Not sure.
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I will also note that multiple-pseudonyms also seems to drive some people berserk. Not in the case you mentioned, with straight fiction under one name and m/m under another, or cook books or horror or whatnot, but people who write m/m under two (or more names). Personally I can see why someone might. If you do BDSM under a certain name, paranormal under another or sweet sugary romance under another, you want your name associated with a “brand” if you will, but I can tell you some people get really in a snit over it. *shrug* I’m way too go with the flow to care much.
Tam
A good clue for those who care is, if the author refers to himself or herself in the third person e.g. ‘”the author” has 3 cats”‘ that author is probably female. Same with photos. 90% of the male writers I interview have no problem with a photo to accompany the interview even if they don’t look so hot, (I had to tell Victor that a naked picture was not what I was looking for, not that he wasn’t smokin’) 😀 but only about 30% of the authors with ambiguous pen names provide photos. I’ll let you guess why.
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Of course there could be other reasons for not providing photos e.g. you don’t want your next door neighbour or church deacon or priest to know you write smut (but then what would they be doing on this site? :)Another reason could be stalkers like you Tam. Or privacy – they don’t want their picture to show up on a five dollar bill.
Speaking as someone who usually knows the genders of the LI authors, I can assure you that often readers can’t tell. Just do your homework and write a good story — and have someone else check to see if you had a blind spot in characterization or plot that would make the story “wrong.” Which is what you should do for any story.
I checked in earlier and made comment on some of your comments. For some reason, though, probably because of my usual computer ineptitude, all of my comments appear at the top of the comment page, after Sage’s initial comment — possibly because I was just going to respond to that and then ended up responding to one and all. — By way of new comment here, I would like to say that I’m of the general opinion that at least one author among the group really should realize we’re not talking great literature here, for the most part, and should really stop taking himself/herself and his/her writing so seriously). Likewise, while I realize that most authors are readers, I really would, one of these days, like to come across the opinions of more people who are readers but NOT writers — not that I don’t value the opinions of my fellow authors, you understand.
Hi William,
As a prolific, published author of 45 M/M books and counting, I have to disagree with you, even though I am your biggest fan.
I need to point out men have been writing women’s romance novels for decades AS women…and women gobbled them up without thinking, “Oh a bloke wrote this.”
Gender is such a fluid thing and why draw lines when it isn’t necessary?
I receive emails daily from both men AND women readers. The men are less…chatty than the women, but both read my books. I’ve had women say I’m sensitive for a male author…I’ve had many guys tell me that the ‘first time’ theme of my “Phantom Lover” book mirrored theirs.
I have read some heartbreaking emails…from guys!
That doesn’t mean I’m a nancy for writing about the emotional stuff that goes with a new relationship. Nor are they for reaching out to somebody who ‘gets it.’
You might want to watch the wedding of gay porn stars Francesco D’Macho and Damien Crosse, posted on various sites. They BAWLED like babies. And they’re macho, macho MEN!
As for the rape fantasy?
This is very prevalent in M/F books and one of the things I dislike most in any genre. Beatings, kidnapings, the enslaving sheik etc. have been strong forces in M/F romance writing and have definitely spilled over into M/M. Both genres have varying degrees of BDSM. Both men and women write them. Can I tell the difference?
No, I can’t – if the writing is good.
Man or woman, most of us are writing romance novels regardless of the heat level.
The hotter the book, the more likely it is to sell. I know this from experience because my one singe mainstream gay novel “Molokai Man” sold nowhere near my erotic novels. And I think it’s one of my better books.
Since I want to make a living at my chosen craft, I am happy to write the smokin’ sex stuff. That said, I have a new series of books in conjunction with Massive Studio, which are being filmed and admittedly it’s brought me some new readers thanks to Massive, but the male readers I have respond the same way the women readers do.
They still want a story, they still want my usual hot sex scenes and they appreciate my humor.
What I am trying to say is there are good and bad authors in any genre and I don’t think gender as ANYTHING to do with it.
Your surfin’ buddy,
AJ
AJ..AJ…You know I love you to pieces, but I’m NOT saying that there aren’t men and women out there who enjoy plot-lead novels and that their tastes shouldn’t be catered do. Look, buddy, I’m one of those Harlequin SuperRomance novelists who wrote three books for women, as Willa Lambert, and three others as Willa, and three more as Anna, my Harlequins having gone into fourteen foreign editions, my LOVE’S EMERALD FLAME on the Barnes and Noble best seller list for weeks on end, and who has just published my mainstream Aussie novel DARE TO LOVE IN OZ — all filled to the brim with plot and romance and whatnot. And, I’d be hard-pressed to find another author who has put as much plot and courtship in an m/m book as I have in BEYOND MACHU, TUSKS, and SNAKES. –All I AM saying is that there are readers out there, and I’m among them, who do, on occasion, want a book that is NOT plot lead, that does not require page after page of personal histories and courtship, that IS merely hot and heavy sex without all the long lead-in and other rigmarole, and I don’t think the authors who write those books should have to hear the moaning and groaning of readers who aren’t smart enough to avoid those books — especially if they’re marked as such from the get-go. –See you hanging ten — either on that surfboard or in the nearest bathhouse.
William
As a reader and a reviewer I read PWP and romances. When I write a review I tell the readers the type of book it is so that they don’t buy one or the other by mistake. Quite frankly I love both types of books, although I don’t review as many PWP here on the site since the bloggers who drop by are for the most part looking for romances.
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However I did do a post about gay porn and so far it’s the third most popular post on the site to date, at almost 1700 “views”. I even gave links for those who like to watch. So not every reviewer has her head in her ass – some of us like to read stroke material as well as the other stuff and we tell the reader which is which..
Ah, Jessewave. It is so hard NOT to have things I have to say come across as generalities when I’m trying to squeeze them into limited space, using only a limited amount of words (so many people with such short attention spans, these days). In that, of course, there are excellent reviewers, like you, and Elisa Rolle, out there, who take the time, and have the patience and intelligence to discern one type of book from another and know that one author may be aiming for one reader, and another author aiming at another. HOWEVER, the majority of reviewers out there, today, I’m afraid, are NOT really reviewers, just people who THINK they’re reviewers and who THINK people are interested in hearing their unenlightened opinions. If there were more reviewers like you and Elisa, and less of the other kind, I’d have far less about which to bitch.
Dude…you are such a tease. I’ve been waiting for our hot tryst for two years…I’m willing to get down and dirty, Willa…are you?
Here’s something interesting, hot guy. I just got a review from a gay porn blog commending my book Bad Cops (now screening in webisodes) for finally producing a gay erotic novel with a plot!
http://tinyurl.com/y8am8gy
heh heh heh
waitin’ on the beach for ya…
Not only will I wear the European-cut bikini swim suit I picked up in Cannes, just to take off for you, but — no matter what we end up doing — and how hot, down and dirty it is — I promise to tell you I love you. How’s that for romantic!?
Don’t forget to bring candles. Can’t wait! 🙂
Well, I think it’s already been said, almost exactly by Ally, but I think this is more of a labeling/marketing failure than anything else. It sounds like William is talking mostly about erotica vs. romance, the expectations that go along with each being very different.
I also think my usual screed about “m/m” or “m/m fiction” being a terrible labeling system (where did this even originate?) would probably fit in here, but I’ll spare you. Aren’t I nice? *g*.
Very thought-provoking post, though, William!
Dakota. –It’s always a pleasure to have you check in, anywhere I can be found, at any time. As for sparing me … would that others were as nice.
Oh, we disagree with each other on here all the time! You’re part of the family now 😀
Ally
Why oh why can’t the bloggers on this site be like one big happy family? That would make me so happy every day as I eat my pie with lots of honey. 😀 You must be more agreeable Ally or you’ll be blackballed. Oh I forgot, that’s me. 🙂
Somewhere in there is an incredibly filthy joke O_O
Reading the article I interpret this to mean that Mr. Maltese has received reviews he does not agree with for either his own work or that of someone he admires. While it cleverly tries to twist the potential type of reader into the problem that really isn’t the case.
Customers, readers, reviewers whether professional or amateur have an opinion that is viable if they have read the book. Whether in your opinion they read the book from the wrong perspective or not is irrelevant. It’s your job as an author to get them to the perspective you want them to have…or not. The glory of words strung together is that nobody interprets them the same way.
He sounds like he disagrees with the reviewer because they didn’t “get” the work. Isn’t that a common complaint of all less than stellar reviews made by an author?
It’s not my job as an author to do anything but write a story that I enjoy. You, personally, may be out to entertain others, but I’m out to entertain just myself, and if others enjoy, that’s all fine and well. If they don’t, tough! And since I’ve survived this long, I suspect I’m doing something so right that I don’t plan to change any time soon. As for everyone’s opinions being viable, we have to disagree. My opinion is the only opinion I find viable. As for the opinion of most reviewers, there are way too many of them these days, to pay any attention to any but a few. Other than that, what anyone says, good or bad, is always considered good publicity in my book.
First, I have to agree with William. In general, gay stories written by women are usually different from ones written by men. As someone way up the page said, women are from Venus and men are from Mars. Usually. Some aren’t.
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I try to keep from turning my heroes into “chicks with dicks” and at the same time fulfill the requirements of my publishers for a “happily ever after” ending. I’ve pushed the HEA back for an HFN but at some point I have to get the characters to say “I love you” so I write with that goal.
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And I believe this is part of the difference. A lot of gay romance written by women is published by companies that require the HEA or HFN ending. I love reading gay erotica but I also want to see a HEA at times too. Most of my books can double for a one-hand read® because the level of sex but there is emotion as well.
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Oh, and far as the housework thing… Don’t be using it as a female stereotype. I have a cross-stitch sampler in my kitchen that says “Housework sucks” and my house reflects it. *cackle* I didn’t get the clean gene!
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The m/m designation probably came from slash fanfiction labeling of names like Kirk/Spock. The “m” substitues for the names? I usually avoid using “m/m” as a description in favor of “gay erotic romance”.
Shayla
>>Oh, and far as the housework thing… Don’t be using it as a female stereotype<< So far the only M/M books I've read with the housework gene were by female authors. Just saying. 😀
This could easily be applied to m/f romances as well as m/m (possibly m/f/m or f/f too, although I don’t delve into those genres very often). By that I mean, it’s not the difference between male and female authors, it’s that one author is writing a romance, and the other is writing porn.
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There’s room for both in the genre, although personally I think there ought to be better separation of the two. Sometimes I’m in the mood for a long, drawn out read with pockets of titillation sprinkled within, and sometimes I’m in the mood for the “wham, bam, thank you man” type.
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However, I would be hard pressed to read PWP erotica and label the book a “romance” which is why I think there needs to be an effort to better define m/m books as erotica or romance, depending on the contents. Labeling your book a “One Handed Read” is a damn good clue that I’m not going to be getting an in-depth romance there, but there are things I’ve picked up that didn’t give any indication that the contents were erotica rather than romance.
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I have a Kindle, and I find that amazon.com is particularly guilty of dumping all “gay and lesbian” books into one genre and letting the reader try to sort it out, for better or worse.
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I could also make a comment about how I disagreed with William’s generalizations, but others have done so better, so I’ll simply agree with Erastes and Sean in that effect.
William,
I agree with you to an extent, I get tired of the drawn out do you don’t you plots of some books. I happen to like hot and heavy books. But in today’s society you have to think and so do I for that matter about practicalities. Yes there are one night stands, yes there are bathroom romps but as some publishers are aknowledging safe sex is the best sex. For some people it’s a niggle point when they see such activities and IMHO, I believe that is why some shy away or groan and moan as you say.
As for the reviewer comment, its kinda a backhanded comment. When I read a book and I review it, I get into the book, I feel the feelings of each character and I get the book. For you to say that we don’t know what we are talking about is seriously hurtful and disrespectful.
Amanda!
I would tend to agree with that in most cases. Women writing m/m do tend to emphasize romance and relationships more often. But that’s not always the case. Some women do write down and dirty back room fun. It’s just fairly rare in my experience. Whereas for most men, an evening in dark places is a meaningful relationship.
Really, it’s whatever you’re in the mood for, but it would be nice knowing which it is going into a book. But I don’t think men are that much more drawn to erotica and women are that much more drawn to romance. Not based on what my female friends are like. Most of those girls can make a gay guy blush! ( and actually did yesterday on twitter, lol )
So I guess what I’m trying to say is that yes, writing styles often differ between men and women, but the audience for either of those writing styles isn’t that clearly divided.
I love a good argument. Not fight, but a situation where everyone can voice their opinions.
I am a reader. I definitely fit into the female reader stereotype that William made. There are reasons that stereotyping exists. I am one of them. I know that men enjoy and other women out there enjoy things that I don’t.
While I wouldn’t complain about dirt or environment, I would be turned off by pain or lack of feeling. While I have enjoyed many books that are an extreme stretch for me, I freely admit that I am a true romance junky. I hate to have the heroes of a story not be romantic at all. They don’t have to start out that way, but if it never appears in the book, I am disappointed.
I truly believe it is a labeling and blurb problem. If you as a writer don’t give me a clear clue as to the romance level in your book, most of the time I won’t buy it. This is probably why I will rely on friends or Waves recommendations. I was so happy to find Waves site the first time I came and read someone’s blog and then investigated the site. I love that Wave makes an effort to include the information that I require before I will read a book.
Anyway, as a reader, I implore you writers, please, like William said, make it obvious to me what kind of read it is. I read all the blurbs. I routinely check out an author’s website before I will purchase. I check Waves site. Mostly I search for clues before purchase.
Oh and just so you writers will know, I never complain about a book unless I feel like I know the author. If it’s someone who I haven’t read or corresponded with, then I will just delete them from my list of authors to look for.
I can count on one hand the number of times I have written to an author and expressed disappointment in a book. Those 3 times I can honestly tell you that it was the author themselves and the other books that they wrote that lead me to believe that all of their books would meet my reading requirements. Every time that I did this I was looking for feedback as to why there was a change in style or content. Only once did I receive a response where the author expressed adequately why the change in style and I am sad to say that even then they didn’t take it as the friendly enquiry that I meant it to be, but as a criticism on their writing ability. It was not meant to be that.
This year when I have started looking into a new to me author’s books to read and not been certain as to content, I have written to the author, given them a detailed list of what I require to enjoy a book, and asked them which of their books would they recommend. Sometimes authors respond well to this tact, sometimes they become mean and aggressive and I never read any of their books.
Damn, yes! Thanks Susilien, for being a reader who does just exactly as a reader should do! While I’m a firm believer that an author should let the reader know what he or she is getting in a book, I’m, likewise, of the opinion that a reader should do his or her part to assure he or she isn’t disappointed, too. Right on!
Susilien
Thank you for all the nice things you said about the reviewers on this site. We do appreciate readers like you and we work hard to earn your trust. I swear that cheque I sent you had nothing to do with this endorsement. 🙂
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As you said, the blurbs do not include critical information. I wish some authors and some publishers paid more attention to giving the readers real information rather than a marketing plug for the book. It’s no wonder many of us readers end up being disappointed because what we thought we were buying or getting did not turn out to be the case.
I agree with you that readers should read blurbs/reviews to get an idea of what they’re buying–and if they don’t bother, it’s their own fault if they end up with a story far more explicit or plot-light than they wanted. I don’t often read the more explicit, myself, but I like that there’s a story out there to suit every taste. It’d be a boring world without variety.
I liked your phrase, “think themselves in love”. I think the “illusion of love”, as Tam put it in her post, happens to men and women both. I think women can be just as quick as men to take physical attraction for eternal love and just as quick, once the heat’s died down, to realize it wasn’t. I also think both men and women want the excitement of the hot physical attraction–and the promise of stability in the long-term love. The best romance novels, for me, accomplish that.
My question is–what is romance to you? Should “plain old m/m sex for sex sake” be labeled a romance novel? Should it only be labeled erotica? I’ve seen them labeled erotica and erotic romance. It all gets confusing. Buyer beware, definitely. 😀
Amen!
Susilien,
You can write me anytime you like. I have been known to advise readers against some of my books, and I’m always willing to give them my honest opinions on them (which may or may not correspond to theirs. I don’t even get sore when someone writes me a nasty note. At least they read the book. I sent a free book to a reader who admitted he’d gotten my book from a pirate site (I figured if I gave him one it was better for his Karma) plus, for some people books can be like food and drink, and I know what it’s like to be penniless. Write me all you want.
Now, will someone please tell me, what is PWP?
Victor
Victor
PWP = Porn without Plot. As if. Have you ever read porn WITH plot? 😀
Wave,
No, I haven’t seen porn with plot but I keep watching just in case. *cackle*
Shayla
shame on you Wave. I just gave away a free membership right here a few days ago for my Massive Sudio books. Porn WITH Plot!
I’m so sorry A.J.
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Everyone – AJ writes Porn WITH Plot – one of the few authors who do. I do apologise and you can smack me around as much as you want AJ for that horrible faux pas. 😀
Grrrrrrrf Wave!
Victor,
PWP is usually defined as “porn without plot”. I’ve seen the designation used a lot in fanfiction but not so much in original fiction.
Shayla
I never saw this as “porn without plot” until I got into pro writing. In fanfic it was always, Plot? WHAT plot?”
You can have both, of course.
William, I’m not saying any books are bad books. I’m just saying I personally am story driven. Anyone, male or female, who tries to pass a plotless 25 page sex scene off on me is going to hear about it. I know there are men telling plot-driven stories. I know there are women writing PWP. Written some myself, but I’m more comfortable between 15-20% sex by word count.
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The best anthology I’m in this year is QUEER DIMENSIONS, with a heavily male authorial presence and a male editor. There are some that didn’t do it for me, but I read them all without skimming. I’m also in an all-female, female edited anth that I’m ashamed of. Smut smut and more smut with two and a half plots to be seen out of six pieces. I skimmed that one heavily.
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I think it comes down to a matter of authorial tastes, reader tastes and a matter of publishing houses.
Mara
As you said, everyone’s tastes are different and each of us has a different tolerance level. What we try to do here is at least indicate the type of story it is without giving out spoilers, because spoilers make the authors and publishers very angry with us. We also in most cases would say that the book had a “good” ending but that could mean HEA or HFN. Realistically we can only aspire to a HFN even in RL because nothing lasts forever, just look at the divorce rates.
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>>Should “plain old m/m sex for sex sake” be labeled a romance novel? Should it only be labeled erotica? << * I'll bet if you asked 10 people this question you'll get 10 different answers. M/M romances push the envelope of someone who's accustomed to reading M/F Harlequin type romances, but if you're accustomed to reading erotica, sex for sex sake could be considered romance. It depends on how liberal your interpretation is. I think the point to remember is that these books are about gay men not a man and a virginal woman, and as one of my gay friends told me "when two dicks are in play a lot more sex happens". * I'm not sure if that answers your question, but keep in mind that the authors are writing about different protags who have different expectations in a hook up than the heroes/heroines in het books.
Wave,
<<What we try to do here is at least indicate the type of story it is without giving out spoilers<<
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Thank goodness for the review sites, I say. I rely heavily on yours, Elisa Rolle's, Book Utopia, Speak Its Name, Uniquely Pleasurable, and all the other sites which review gay or m/m romance or gay fiction in general. I'd be lost without you guys, since I can't always tell, even from a book's blurb, what I'm getting–especially if the author is new to me. And you can't always rely on the number of flames or lips or coffee cups to direct you because there's so much personal opinion involved. I know there are books I would have considered explicit that other fans do not consider very explicit at all.
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<<M/M romances push the envelope of someone who’s accustomed to reading M/F Harlequin type romances, but if you’re accustomed to reading erotica, sex for sex sake could be considered romance.<<
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That's a good point. That's true of even book review sites such as Whipped Cream Reviews, which puts all m/m in the explicit section of reviews even if there's no explicit sex in the book.
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<<“when two dicks are in play a lot more sex happens”.<<
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😀 That explains a lot, doesn't it.
As someone else pointed out, I think the main problem here is one of publisher labeling rather than a male vs female mindset. There’s erotica and then there’s erotic romance, each which come with their own audience and expectations (pun not intended).
Amanda
Talking about labeling – my biggest peeve is M/M romances where the guys are having sex with women. If I want to read menages or a book with guys screwing women I would seek out those books, but when I’m halfway through what I thought was a M/M romance and all of a sudden there are sex scenes with women, without warning in the blurbs, that’s the biggest turn off. Most of those books are DNF for me.
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The readers who check out our reviews know that we tell them upfront if there’s any M/F sex in the books and whether it’s on page sex, because most of them have similar tastes.
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If I know ahead of time and decide to read the book anyway then that’s my decision, but if a publisher sends me a M/M romance with M/F sex and that’s not indicated in the blurb that’s a different scenario. One publisher that does an excellent job of labeling is Amber Allure – I always know what I’m getting. I have asked other M/M publishers to consider labeling their M/M books which have M/F sex the same way they would label non con or twincest, but so far I have had only limited success.
That really is a fascinating post, William. Since I am “just” a reader, nor writer or reviewer and there is already so much response I just try to make it short. When I started to read M/M fiction I was always trying to find out the gender of the writer just because I was curious what the different view might be or if there even was a difference (and yes, the pseudonyms make it sometimes difficult). To be more sure to know the difference I bought some of the books from one the GLBT – website, pre-Stonewall novels by Dirk Vanden and others I could get my hands on that were available as eBook and I think they fit the definition of one hand reads you gave. I really enjoyed most of them. And it wasn`t the subject of the story, it was the writing. If the writing is not too crude (and I just mean the style of writing, not the content) then these are in my opinion romance stories too. What else are these men doing but looking for something, love or a guy ore guys to be with how long ever they want ? There are a lot of different things people are looking for and who are we to judge them. The main thing the stories should be judged by in my opinion should be the writing and that can be very very good either way and sometimes very very bad.
That said, I still love some courting and conflict in well written good story, a steamy sex scene or two or three or… But hey, I` m female and the female brain does works different from the male, thank god. And even all women or all men are alike, thankfully. It would be so boring if everyone would like the same.
So, please all you writers, let interesting, diverse, well crafted and written stories keep coming, be you male or female, and thanks again William, for this provoking post. I really like your books and if your super-Harlequin novels are available as eBooks, I am sure to buy them
Karin
Karin. Germany one of my very favorite places, possibly because the first of my Stud Draqual mystery series (DESSOUS ZUM STERBEN) was picked up there for German-language publication by legit-publisher Rotbuch Krimi, and I have several books, including anthologies, published German-language by Gmunder. And my short story “Doppelmorder” in Querverlag’s QUEER CRIME, edited by Lisa Kuppler (HSG.), got raves calling me “a master of the mystery genre (another reason to love Germans).”Alas, while I’m trying my best to get all of my books into ebook format, I don’t think any of my SuperRomances for Harlequin (LOVE’S EMERALD FLAME, FROM THIS BELOVED HOUR, LOVE’S GOLDEN SPELL), although all recently re-issued under my William Maltese name by Wildside/Borgo are yet out in ebook. I’ll keep trying. In the meantime, if you prefer your reading in German, check out all of my books listed on amazon.de. Hugs.
As someone else mentioned, I think the real difference here isn’t about the gender of the author, but about the genre in which the author is writing. There is a difference, a big difference in my opinion, between stroke fiction (gay erotica) and gay erotic romance. I’ve known plenty of men who write erotic romance who delve into emotional aspects of relationships just like women erotic romance authors do. I’ve also known women who write erotica and eschew emotions in favor of the physical, just as male authors writing erotica do. It’s all about genre, and it’s apples and oranges to try to compare the two.
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I write erotic romance, complete with a full range of emotion, and the vast majority of reader mail I get is from gay men who, first and foremost, thank me for writing stories with emotion and “real romance” in them where the heroes aren’t afraid to say “I love you.” They enjoy the sex also, a whole lot sometimes. *g* But 90% of the time any email that mentions the hot sex, also mentions an appreciation for the emotion and romance. Which tells me that there are plenty of gay men out there who are seeking emotional as well as physical relationships, and enjoy reading about them.
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FWIW, I don’t write with a specific gender of audience in mind. I don’t think, as I write, “I’d better stick to this type of thing because that’s what the guy readers want,” or “I’d better include this because it’s what the women readers want.” Quite frankly, my *characters* in each story, their personalities, dictate what happens, how physical they get with one another, how much emotion they share. I don’t think it’s fair to say women only want this and men only want that. That’s stereotyping in the worst way. Every individual (real or fiction), regardless of gender, has a unique personality, a unique set of strengths and weaknesses, social and moral standards, fears and foibles, and background baggage which all affect how he/she behaves and responds in sexual and romantic situations. Good writing, regardless of the gender of the author or the target audience, should convey the unique desires of each character, and that’s what should drive the content of a story. Again, keeping in mind that I treat erotic romance and erotica as two separate genres and here I’m referring to erotic romance since that’s what I write.
ML
You know I love your books – hot sex, romance AND emotion. What a combination. I just finished reading Wanting and am about half way through the review and I’m still hot. 😀
porn without plot, aha! oddly, in the 60s and early 70s, hard core porn books and movies did have plots, often very good ones. Of course, this takes us back to that unresolvable question, if it has a plot, is it erotica rather than porn. But the publishers and the film-makers in those early instances considered what they were doing to be porn.
Now, the m/f question. Those of you who’ve read the Deadly mysteries know that in the first, Deadly Nightshade, there was some het sex, also in Deadly Dreams, though mostly “off-screen.” Did those of you who read them find them objectionable? Just curious. Oh, and for the record, back in the 60s, paperback publishers didn’t have a lot of faith in the gay market, so gay books then often had some straight or bi stuff in it, often written in by the editor. Even the Man From C.A.M.P. , though I deleted all that when it was reissued.
Victor
Victor
Having read the Deadly series and knowing Tom’s personality (he was previously straight and can’t resist a hot woman) a bit of M/F sex was not unexpected. However, if you have him screwing with any more women I will be upset. 😀 If I recall, the sex was not on page sex except maybe in Nightshade.
*
Generally I don’t want my guys with women in M/M books, otherwise why bother to read this sub genre – I might as well read M/F. However that’s just me.
I didn’t mind the het sex Victor but then I’m a little less militant than some *coughWavecough*. LOL In a case like that it was fine and I likely didn’t focus on it too much but yeah, I don’t want tons of m/f action and it has to make sense. If a book blurb says m/m/f then I’ll likely pass, if there is one scene of a guy with a girl then he firmly stands by his man after that I’m okay with it. But don’t give me a 15 page graphic scene. 🙂
Tam
Militant? Moi? I said I didn’t want women having sex with the guys!!! Oooops
I think nearly everything has been said that I would have wanted to say, but I’ll just add my views as a reader and a reviewer.
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I think what we are looking at here is the difference between ‘romance’ as a genre and ‘erotica’. I review romance and so there are certain conventions that I would expect to find within that genre – mainly that by the end of the book the protags would have a meaningful, emotional connection – if not love, then getting that way. If that doesn’t happen, then I’m going to be disappointed and that will be reflected in the comments that I would make in a review.
*
If a book isn’t romance but instead another genre, erotica being one, or even mystery or fantasy or other genres with no emphasis on romance, then I wouldn’t expect that emotional connection to take place and therefore wouldn’t comment in a review.
*
I suppose the problem arises when there is a slight cross-over of genres, for example a mystery with a romantic sub-plot. If the author has been open and specific about the romance having an important role in the story, again I will expect the emotional connection and the book will be judged accordingly. This is the same for erotica. If an author is releasing their erotica through a publisher who deals mainly with romance novels, I would expect the romance conventions to still apply to it – no matter how raunchy the material. If this isn’t the case, then yes, the blurb must make that very clear.
*
On a side note, I’m rubbish at working out whether an author is male or female!
*
Thank you for this thought provoking post, William. It has certainly created an interesting set of responses :).
WARNING: While I’m a firm advocate in a writer letting his audience know what they’re getting, and encourage other authors to do the same, please be aware that the term ONE-HAND READ® as it applies to fiction is licensed as a trademark to me, and to me only, and if any other author, or publisher, or reviewer uses it, without indicating my trademark registration, I’ll have my lawyers down on him or her like a ton of bricks! Actually, you’ll just get a polite note, asking you please to refrain; then, if you don’t, I’ll have my lawyers down on you like a ton of bricks — Actually, I’m really a genuinely guy — no matter how it may seem otherwise.
You warned me many times William and I’m sure at some point the dreaded lawyer’s letter will arrive. What would I have to do to make it up to you? I can’t promise you hot sex – you live too far away plus I’m female, (although you did say at one point that you didn’t discriminate). 😀 I could throw money at you but I have none. How about a lap dance?? Oh I forgot, I don’t know how to do a lap dance. Well I guess it will have to be a pole dance because I know how to do that. 😀
“Well I guess it will have to be a pole dance because I know how to do that.”
*
Oh video honey, video. 😀
*
I shall refrain from using said copyright phrase and stick to stroke fiction. 🙂
A pole dance it is! And I have just the pole!
“One-hand” may be copyrighted, but I’ve seen the term “one-handed” used for decades, so I hope you’re not going after anyone who uses that.
Well, I have to admit to getting a lot of flack because my protagonist Stud Draqual in my Stud Draqual mystery series actually does “it” with women, and because he’s still reluctant to give men a try. Gays (now women?) are furious that he’s not out of his closet! Well, people, this is, after all, a series. Give the guy a chance! First people don’t want wham-bam-thank-you-man sex, then when a guy needs some time to consider his options (like a couple books or two), he and the author still get static. Sometimes, I just can’t win for losing. — By the way, as regards Porn Without Plot, is there really such a thing published, in that the last time I heard, something without redeeming social value can still be prosecuted under the law; therefore, you might want to take a closer look to be sure what you think is PWP is PWP, because I suspect there’s something there saving the author’s ass from being hauled off to the hoose-gow.
Hi William,
Interesting discussion you sparked today. 🙂 I have to say, I agree with you. There is a distinct difference in the way men write to women. When I first came into this genre, I specifically looked for male authors. The names tripped me up a bit, but I definitely got better at the research. That is not to say that there aren’t some women authors that I enjoy, there are. I just wanted a, for lack of better phrasing, more realistic feel to my reading material, when I started.
~
Before someone jumps on that, I know it’s fiction, but men have a different take on things. How did Victor put it above, “…if a man writes that kind of scene between two men, it’s generally from the POV of the raper, not the rapee…” It’s not just in a rape scene. It’s most scenes, and not just perspective, but it’s that type of feel. There are also minor things in the tone of conversations that are usually different between male and female writers. I am talking general terms. Everything has an exception, I know.
~
That said, I can’t speak to the cleaning issue Wave brought up being a tell as female, as all the Gay and Bi men I know got the cleaning gene I missed. Sorry Wave, though I never dealt with Frats, even college dorm rooms were immaculate for the boys I knew back then, so I wouldn’t have blinked if their Frat rooms were in a book. 😉
~
I would argue that, while I do think overall we do need better labeling on books, some people, men mostly, but I know a few women, do consider, I’ll call it, recreational sex, a form of romance. Whether or not I agree is not the point, the point is that’s their opinion, and they have the right to it. Yes, there should be something added that it’s a one-hand read®, but that goes to the labeling, not that it doesn’t qualify as romance or that it’s the authors fault it was mislabeled.
~
I’ve re-read this several time, and hopefully caught all the mistakes. On posts this long, I do make a habit of stating, I’m dyslexic, so if anything didn’t make sense, please ask, as I was not intending to be disrespectful, or confusing in any way it’s just sometimes things come out wrong. That said the discussion was way too interesting to stay out of. Plus you wanted more readers only. 😉
Thank you.
Lynn: I only wish I could write so error-free as you do. Even when I re-read something, especially when it’s something of mine, I have a habit of reading what I assume was there, not what is there. I suspect Kris, presently editing my I, DEBAUCHEE, is having her usual oh-God-William time of it. Sigh! –Thanks, by the way, for checking in!
PWP…You’re thinking of obscenity, William, not pornography. Obscenity laws that define what is/isn’t obscene may or may not be enforced depending on whether or not the material in question is being sold for profit or displayed or otherwise made available to the general public. Moreover, the material accused of being obscene must fail every single criteria set to it to establish its obscenity. Failing simply one test won’t do: it has to fail them all. That’s why male romance publishers uniformly stipulate that m/m fiction involving scat scenes “meant to titillate” will be refused.
Scat fiction has apparently failed these tests before.
Pornography without plot (PWP) isn’t against the law, because pornography isn’t against the law. Obscenity is, but first you have to define what is and what isn’t obscene.
One legal definition of obscenity is: (quote)
-Such indecency as is calculated to promote the violation of the law and the general corruption of morals.
-The exhibition of an obscene picture is an indictable offense at common law, although not charged to have been exhibited in public, if it be averred that the picture was exhibited to sundry persons for money.
-For something to be “obscene” it must be shown that the average person, applying contemporary community standards and viewing the material as a whole, would find (1) that the work appeals predominantly to “prurient” interest; (2) that it depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way; and (3) that it lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
-An appeal to “prurient” interest is an appeal to a morbid, degrading and unhealthy interest in sex, as distinguished from a mere candid interest in sex.
-end quotes-
PWP is not prosecutable fiction in and of itself, since a candid or even intense interest in sex is considered normal behavior for men AND women, and pornography (both past and present) has been deemed many times to be of social, artistic, political, historical and scientific value .
Kirby
I wonder if these laws apply in Canada too. I have visions of the RCMP handcuffing me for having this website and also because they consider today’s conversation obscene.
Wave: Are you familiar with the anti-censorship song “Dirty Books” by the Canadian band Local Anxiety?! Based on your comment, you SO need to listen to it.
I have to go off on a funny tangent here and then I’m done for the day, but this is on that cleaning gene and men and women and guy boys. I managed apartment buildings in San Francisco for years. Now, when you rent an apartment to, say, 2 or 3 straight guys, you expect them to be pigs, and 2 or 3 straight women (I’m talking young folks here, college age) you expect the apartments to be neat. Forget it, it’s exactly the opposite. The guys keep the apartments clean because they hope they’ll entice a young woman home and they don’t want her to think they’re slobs. The girls don’t care. They know why a guy comes home with them, and it ain’t for housecleaning.
Funny bit of human nature, but it might fit in a book somewhere.
Victor
Damn, I do believe you are right! Yes, please, and thank-you!
My previous “Damn you’re right; yes, please, and thank-you” looks as if it refers to Victor’s house-cleaning tale (which it very well might), but actually it was to Kirby’s info which I thought exceedingly interesting, especially since I got the porno-obscenity connection all wrong.
Holy cream cheese, Batman! Its gays and girls gone wild here today!!
Labels are great and they also suck. I do think it’s the author and publisher’s responsibility to market their books correctly so readers have some clue as to what they’re purchasing. Of course, I’ve know people who would have seen Williams tag of “One Handed Read” and assumed it was for people with only one arm. I also believe that a reviewer should maintain some semblance of professionalism by not lighting the torches and grabbing their pitch forks every time they read a book that doesn’t give them what they want.
I’m not delusional enough to think I’m going to please everyone. For those individuals who seem seldom happy with anything you read, well, if you want to read a book where you control everything that happens, then I suggest you start writing them.
What it all really boils down to for me is everyone spends too much time being all judgie. If you never read anything you didn’t like, you wouldn’t appreciate the books you do like, near as much. At the same time, just because you didn’t enjoy a book, doesn’t mean the person next to you won’t.
The sad fact of the matter is that stereotypes didn’t just materialize out of thin air. That doesn’t make them always right, but it also doesn’t make them wrong. Do all gay men act fem? No, but some do — that doesn’t make them bad or good. It just, is. Are all gay men just after a quick hook-up? No, but many will take it as opposed to going home alone. That doesn’t make them bad or good, or even unworthy of love should they want it — it just, is. On a side note — I was shocked to discover being pigeon-holed wasn’t quite the same thing as being corn-holed. Boy, was that embarrassing!
I think we all spend too much time worrying about what is or isn’t something that men who love other men could and would do. I’m one of those men and I can’t answer that question because all gay men aren’t clones of me — thank god. Lord knows I may have fucked myself over many times in the past, but a lifetime of fucking myself over and over? No thanks.
Great post William! You stirred up all kinds of controversy, LOL. Who knows, if I ever get the chance, I may ask you to place one of your hands here or there…I may even ask you tell me you love me while you’re doing it. ; ) But don’t worry. I won’t hold it against you if you don’t really mean it. Sometimes, simply hearing it is enough. : )
Ethan
This is why I love you so much
>>On a side note — I was shocked to discover being pigeon-holed wasn’t quite the same thing as being corn-holed. Boy, was that embarrassing! << * You brought me to my knees and not in a good way.
*
>>Who knows, if I ever get the chance, I may ask you to place one of your hands here or there…I may even ask you tell me you love me while you’re doing it. ; ) << If this ever happens could you please tell me? I want to know if William really puts out. This conversation today is getting way too serious for me and you are like a breath of fresh air. Of course that does not mean that I like your books - that's a different matter altogether. You know nothing about being gay. :-D * >>I also believe that a reviewer should maintain some semblance of professionalism by not lighting the torches and grabbing their pitch forks every time they read a book that doesn’t give them what they want. << I'm polishing my pitchfork for your next book. 😀
Hi Wave!
Do me a favor and polish the other end — you know, the handle. LOL! That’ll be a review I’ll love for sure! ; )
> Sometimes, simply hearing it is enough. : )
Or reading it.
Imaginations are a wonderful thing.
Ethan,
“On a side note — I was shocked to discover being pigeon-holed wasn’t quite the same thing as being corn-holed. Boy, was that embarrassing!” <<I still don't know, please don't tell me it's starting to sound scary!
Seriously Ethan, Love what your said
"I think we all spend too much time worrying about what is or isn’t something that men who love other men could and would do. I’m one of those men and I can’t answer that question because all gay men aren’t clones of me — thank god. Lord knows I may have fucked myself over many times in the past, but a lifetime of fucking myself over and over? No thanks."
This is why I will read certain authors no matter what they write and why other authors, I will ask questions. Although I must say I love all of your books so far Ethan. You are just too much fun to miss.
Thanks Susilien. I appreciate that! Sometimes I wonder if we aren’t getting too tied up in the mechanics of it all — that we forget that the art of telling a story is more than craft. Not that craft should be overlooked, but I think there’s a little bit of magic to it as well. Reading is a gift as is storytelling. To be able to get lost in another world, or in the problems or predicaments of another persons life? We shouldn’t get so caught up in the rules of it all that we lose the magic, cause that’s actually the best part, isn’t it?
Ethan. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: I love your ability to write something that invariably, somewhere within, makes me smile See me smile!
Thank you kind sir. I’m certainly imagining that smile.
I just almost peed my pants reading that. 🙂
Sorry Aunt Lynn! I’m going to start placing a urination warning on my posts here just for you. ; )
~
Hugs darlin’
I love ’em both. Well-written raunch can be a turn-on. But for most publishers and reviewers? Not so much. Royalties, alas, are also a consideration.
I’ve enjoyed the discussion. As a female and an avid m/m reader it has given me lots of names of books to buy. 30 so far LOL.
(Lucky Fictionwise has 50% off multiformat erotica at the moment). Rush in and take advantage of it! I didn’t see it advertised, just had a pleasant surprise when I started ordering. Sorry if you authors get less money that way but I’d never heard of Sean Kennedy, Ally Blue, M.L. Rhodes or even you William before. Now you’ve just sold some more books. Hope that makes you happy. (Waves to Victor and AJ – I bought a couple more of yours too. Love ‘Lola Dances’)
The main problem, as I see it, is labelling.
All m/m is labelled as erotica. Even erotic romance is probably not accurate in many cases if you take the definition of the genre ‘erotica’ as requiring the sex (not love) being a crucial element of the plot. At least that’s what applies as far as het erotica is concerned.
It seems anything which is not ‘traditional’ m/f gets lumped under this label.
I like your trade-marked “One hand read”. Now to read them and see whether they work. (Did I just write that????)
Until the labelling changes, there will be confusion on the part of the reader. At least calling the other ‘erotic romance’ goes some of the way. However, in many cases, if the protagonists were different sexes, some barely rate as romance.
Like many readers, I like to know the sex of the writer not so much for knowing whether what they’ve written is plausible action wise. (Can they really get it up again that quickly and just exactly how sensitive to touch are they afterwards?) But I also like to have some degree of assurance about the way a male character thinks.
According to your post, men can think of love as a one night stand. Note, I said ‘can’ That’s news to me.
I’m not judging it or assuming its right in all cases, but I find it fascinating and a revealing look into the male psyche.
Isn’t that one of the reasons why we read. To get inside a character’s head.
I’d be interested in reading your Harlequin boks simply to see how successfully you get inside a female’s head. Is there any difference between us? Are Women from Venus and Men from Mars or is that a generalisation or social programming.
It’s interesting to read that Victor skips reading the sex scenes. I’ve been trying to assess whether there are differences in m/m books written by males (who I know are males). I think he’s not alone. Often the actual description of the sex is shorter and less explicit than when women write it.
Is it related to performance anxiety/actual ability on one part and wishful thinking on the other?
As a wannabe m/m writer (60,000 words done so far) my main fear is writing about two chicks with dicks. I’ll need to go through when I finish and change things. Make them swear more? Interrupt each other? Fart? Play more sport? Cut half their dialogue? Stop them being interested in cooking?
*waves to fellow Aussie*
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Quote: “I’ll need to go through when I finish and change things. Make them swear more? Interrupt each other? Fart? Play more sport? Cut half their dialogue? Stop them being interested in cooking?”
~
One of my favourite gay male characters, Dave Brandstetter, written by Joseph Hansen, is often cooking. And Joseph frequently uses descriptions of flowers and interior decorating in his stories. So I guess anything goes!
Oh A.B. –How I love you Aussies! My advice, skip all of my m/m books and head directly, do not pass go, to my just released mainstream Aussie romantic/adventure DARE TO LOVE IN OZ. While it’s not yet on amazon.com and likely won’t make it’s appearance for a week or so, it is available on the publisher’s page: https://www.createspace.com/3407866
OK. Will do, though not keen on reading het these days. Too old to put myself into pants of young female characters I think.
Just like perving on the young male ones.
Will check to see if you got your facts right. My WIP features American males in three different states during course of book. That’s a bitch trying to get lingo and facts right.
Friend wanted me to set it in Australia, but eh your average US joe blow (jill blow) isn’t interested in reading books set in OZ and that’s where the market is.
Would be interested in hearing how comparable sales go for you.
Assume it will be the usual case. OZ = outback (with snakes) or beach (with sharks)
(Sigh) how about suburbia with funnel webs and drop bears.
**On a side note — I was shocked to discover being pigeon-holed wasn’t quite the same thing as being corn-holed. Boy, was that embarrassing!**
Ethan, I bet the pigeon was surprised, too.
Oh Treva…you have no idea! : )
PWP in my circles stands for “plot? what plot?”. 🙂
i’m a reader and transgendered (take that for “men are from mars, women are from venus”; i’m from … uranus?).
i don’t think that makes me any different from male or female readers overall. from my perspective most gender stereotyping isn’t worth the electrons wasted by it. i know sensitive guys who love romance and cuddling, and women who like their sex down and dirty and without strings attached. you’ll never appeal to every reader; as long as you don’t write down to people you’ll find your audience, and their gender doesn’t matter.
me, it depends. sometimes i look for pure wank material, sometimes i want a solid story, sometimes i want escapist fantasy. i contain multitudes, not because i am transgendered, but because i am human. we’re none of us as simplistic as stereotypes try to make us. the more you think in stereotype, the more important data you lose in your writing. and it’s the little things that make it good.
i agree with those who say it’s primarily an issue of marketing — get the reader in touch with the fiction that will please their expectations. m/m is a ghetto genre, and that ticks me off — there are so many good, solid, and even great stories written that belong right on those mainstream shelves with the literature. but they’re kicked into the same bin as the “one hand reads” because oh no, teh gay might taint the sacred mainstream fiction. it does neither writers nor readers any favours.
i want better blurbs from publishers. i want to know ahead of time whether what i’m gonna read calls for liberal application of lube, or for tea and a cat in my lap. i can figure it out usually — not by the gender of the author, but by their track record. but i wish i didn’t have to make so many false starts. maybe that’s just a sign of a genre in flux, which this one definitely is, a genre trying to bridge porn, erotica, pulp, romance, coming out, and coming of age is probably bound to be in flux. but it’s definitely time for better labelling.
one last word about the “men are from mars, women are from venus” claptrap: i can’t always tell the gender of an author from the story, but i CAN always tell whether they suffer from sorting men and women into different boxes, and whether they believe “romance is for girly girls”. those are the books that get the really bad reviews from me. have some damn respect for the people for whom you’re writing.
Well, PIR: In my Stud Draqual mystery series (both A SLIP TO DIE FOR and THAI DIED), I tried my best to paint transgenders in a favorable light — possibly more so in the former than the latter. In both books, though, I recognized their importance as part of society and made a conscious effort to make them an intricate part of my story-lines.
A.B. Gayle,
Don’t worry about the “chicks with dicks” unless you’re writing phallogynes or XY girls. I really hate that term to describe “over-emotional” men. As if women have a monopoly on feelings.
*
To quote one of my favorite movies, “There are all sorts of men who behave in all sorts of ways.” You can write hyper macho guys who never do anything but frot off (penetration=girl in some minds) and grunt. You can write flaming drag queens who swan about and leave lipstick prints on their lovers’ cocks. You can write hot and smart politicians who can talk anyone into anything. You can even let them bake cookies, but only after you’ve established their macho cred. (Even Harrison Ford’s closeted character in The Conversation bakes cookies) Tears…it had better be a major death or a bullwhip. But some men are very pretty when they cry…
(warning, pic is het)
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v204/valarltd/?action=view¤t=tear.jpg
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My best advice is get a couple of people to read it afterward. People who are male or people who live with males and understand their emotional and psychological responses.
Hey, even I bake cookies. In fact, in my THE GLUTEN-FREE WAY: MY WAY, which I wrote with my niece, you’ll find several recipes, mainly including Xocai chocolate, that saw me in the kitchen, sweating over saucepans, and later eating my own gluten-free delicious desserts.
PWP was “Plot, What Plot?” back when I was writing fanfic, I wrote some of it, and I’m not in the least bit ashamed of it. But I mostly wrote stuff that had plot as well as shagging. A lot of what I wrote bore very little, if any, resemblance to romance, and some of it would probably send the hearts-n-flowers slashfen running screaming into the night.
~
However, when I’m writing profic for a romance publisher, I write romance. Yes, that means paying at least some attention to the genre conventions, even if I’ve got more than one cock in the bed, and my heroes aren’t always thinking about True Love when they start sticking their cocks into one another. One of those conventions is that there actually be a loving emotional relationship by the end of the book, and one that looks as if the parties involved want it to be permanent and have a good shot at making it last. If it doesn’t have that, then it isn’t genre romance; and if the book is being presented to readers as genre romance, they’re entitled to bitch if they don’t get something that at least vaguely resembles a HFN in a dim light.
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I’ve got an “encounter between strangers in a public toilet” sitting on my hard drive. It supposedly sold to an anthology, but I never did get either payment or formal contract from the editor, and I’ll probably send it again one of these days. If I do manage to sell it to someone who follows through, I will make it clear on any links I post that it is *not* romance. I’ll still probably get anguished cries from those who did not read the blurb before clicking, but I’ll have done my best not to leave people reading something they weren’t expecting.
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All of which is to say what a lot of people have already said — it is not necessarily a case of male and female writers, but of writing to the intended market, and if something is misleadingly labelled, then don’t be surprised if people complain about getting something they didn’t expect. (If it *is* clearly labelled and someone still complains — yes, it’s more than a little annoying to have your book criticised for not being the book the reader wanted to read.)
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As for the male or gender-ambiguous pseuds — some of us have those because we’ve been around since before the current crop of pro m/m romance aimed at a female readership, and were originally submitting to editors who wanted or required us to use pseuds that were not obviously female.
~
[Wave, is there some way to make this thing show proper paragraph breaks?]
Jules: Unfortunately WordPress hates paragraph breaks. I think they were in a relationship gone wrong or something, but the only way to make it clear is as you did with the little gidget/widgets in between.
Since Wave will probably just refer you to me, I’ll take this one, Jules. 😉 WordPress does not recognize para breaks, so one must get clever and force some HTML on it. Stick this:
& nbsp;< br > (eliminate the spaces you see in the code)
where ever you want a break. Otherwise you’re stuck with addding some kind of character, like the tilde you used. I know it sucks, but that’s the reality.
Oh, I’m done for the day, but I couldn’t stop without saying, William, I do adore you
Victor
I’m going to try my best to stop by tomorrow (my memory, you know, or lack thereof), since I understand you’re going to be here, discussing your top five favorite books, or something along that line. Hugs.
This is the argument I having been making for ages. I want to read mm written by MEN for men!!!!Not fluff that’s why i left m/f fiction. I know female writers do a great job, but I want to know this genre from a male’s viewpoint. It is not the same. To me it’s a turn-on when I read that there is no pretense when it comes to hooking up for sex.I don’t slways need to read a long drawn out romance.Thank you Mr Maltese.
You’re welcome, Arlene!
I found the comments by Arlene Rosenberg a little perplexing. If one follows the logic of that statement then all fiction written by women should have women leads and vice versa and should never have point of views from the opposite sex. Let alone trying to write a same sex story that isn’t from the point of view from someone who is the same sex as the writer.
~
I have reading material that is a little PWP but have recently been pointed to some really good gay romance novels. They have been written by woman and the last thing that I would say is that they are fluffy.
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If you can’t tell if an author is male or female try looking for an author’s biography. If there isn’t one then see if they have a website and that might help you.
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And maybe people should try reading the blurbs that they put on the backs of books. After all they are there to give someone a flavor of the book.
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I think that Mr Maltese sums it up well when he says the following – do a little research on whom (man or woman) wrote the book you’re tempted to buy and what the available blurbs have to say about the book in question. You might still end up disappointed, on occasion, but I guarantee you’ll be less so, as an informed reader, than you’ll ever be if you pay less attention.
I’m picky. I only want to read vampire stories written by REAL vampires. Same with werewolves and extraterrestrial aliens. How’s a reader supposed to know what Vulcans REALLY think unless the story is written by one? Dang!
Aaaa…amen! Aaaaa…amen! Aaaaa…men! Amen! Amen!
Sorry to be late to the party. Much of what I think has already been expressed previously — and assuredly better!
As a reader, I want to know in the blurb (and any other labels) whether or not a story is going to be romance or erotica. I buy based on my mood and sometimes I want one and sometimes the other. I don’t care one way or another the gender or orientation of the author, though I have to admit that if the reader is actively, purposefully led to believe that the author is, say, a gay man and “he” turns out to be a woman, that bothers me because I’m not one who likes being either misled or lied to.
As a reviewer, I want to know the same information, and I will relate in my review if the blurb/label was wrong or misleading. If I think, based on the blurb or other labels, that I am getting a fluffy romance with at least a HFN and instead I find a page-after-page smutfest, I’ll be sure to include that in my review. Not because I am against smut — I’m all for it! — but because that is not what I expected or what I believed I was buying, and I think potential buyers have a right to know what they’re getting into.
I guess I’m just agreeing with others who are calling for better marketing/labeling from the pubs (and authors, if the work is self-published).
Late to the party as well and if William makes it all the way down to this post, then he’s a saint. I know how time consuming checking on posts can be.
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The stars must have aligned or something because I was just eyeing the Conspiracy of Ravens last night on Amazon. And boy did I ever love the sub-title. I’m one of those girls that does enjoy a one hand read or boner book as some are labeled. I can’t get a boner but I sure have mastered the art of one hand reading. 😀 So I definitely don’t fit into those stereotypes very well.
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What really fascinated me about this post was that with all the talk about women writing m/m in never crossed my mind that men, gay men especially, would write m/f romance and erotica. I know straight men write m/f romance, like for instance, Nicholas Sparks, though I don’t know enough of his work to know if he is considered a ‘romance author’ or ‘an author who writes romance’. Or even what genre he considers himself. And I figured straight men would write m/f erotica for straight men but on the whole I just didn’t even think about it. Most, if not all, of my m/f romance and erotica collection is written by women. So the notion that a gay man wrote m/f completely took me by surprise even though it shouldn’t have. If straight women can read and write gay erotica, why can’t gay men write, and even read, straight erotica? And then add on to the fact that while women have felt the need to use gender natural pen names for their m/m work, it makes a sad kind of sense that men would feel the need to use female pen names for their m/f work. I’m not sure what it all means but that part of the post really struck me and opened my eyes to something I’d been blind to.
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I agree with most everyone that better labeling all around would help immensely. The last book I was disappointed with was labeled a m/m romance, right on the cover too, and the blurb even made it sound as if romance would be forthcoming. But the two leads spent all of 3 chapters together and had more sex with other people than each other, coming together in only the last chapter. This was a rather large book too, not a short. If I’d known what I was getting, I might not have been so disappointed.
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But I can’t even fathom getting in touch with the author and telling them that! It’s wasn’t a bad book, it just wasn’t my thing. I don’t hold the author responsible for my likes and dislikes. I might want to take the advertising department to task, but that’s as far as I’d go and only if they asked me, which they won’t.
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I’ve also been crap at trying to figure out of if an author is male or female. I would think I have it figured out and then blam! It turns out they are the other. I used to think men wrote more ‘wetter’ sex scenes. That’s just a phrase I use for myself. It always felt like the men got more dirty or juicy or something like that. Kinda like how in gay porn, some guys spit on each other in various places…stuff like that you just won’t see in m/f fiction. Not that you see it a ton in m/m either but…that’s where my mind was at when I came up with the term. Then I found out my more ‘wet’ stories were told by women. After that I just gave up. Now I find it to be a pleasant surprise when author’s gender is revealed to me, but it really has no bearing on whether I’ll buy something or not. But then again, I’m a boner book buyer as well. It just depends on what I’m in the mood for.
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As for researching the author…I don’t know that I’d go that far. I started my m/m reading in fanfiction and unfortunately there was more than a few times that I found out an author whose work I’d loved, wasn’t such a great person. It ended up ‘tainting’ the stories for me. No longer could I enjoy just the work, with my memory of unpleasant conversations and experiences. What is that saying, about meeting our heroes? So after that I tended to stay clear. Which is why it’s still so mind-boggling to me that through this blog I’m able to talk to some of my fav authors. It’s a little terrifying, I gotta admit. I’m star-struck and afraid at the same time. But I’m loving it as well.
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Now I’m off to plunk some money down on a one hand read…at least this time I know what I’m getting into since it says it right there in the title. Thanks, William!
Sharvie
I hope William sees and responds to your comment. Poor man, his hand must be cramped from all the work he did responding to all the comments yesterday.
Great post. We all agree that better labelling is what the publishing industry should aim for – it’s getting better, but a lot more work needs to be done if they don’t want unhappy readers moving on to another publisher.
Re male authors writing Harlequin-type romances – Victor J. Banis, one of my favourite authors, also wrote a lot of M/F romances before he gave it up to concentrate on M/M exclusively.
Well, okay, Sharvie, I accept the designate of Saint for having not only scrolled as far as your better-late-than never comment but having enjoyed it thoroughly. It could actually have been a guest blog in and of itself it’s so chockablock with interesting comments. –There’s another of my “official” one-hand reads® out there, CircuSex, and although the book I’ve just turned in for publication, I, DEBAUCHEE, isn’t officially labeled as such, it might well be (although it actually just gets the designate “Book #1 of the William Maltese ‘I’ series). –You probably already read, somewhere above, that I’ve had all of my early m/f Willa Lambert Harlequins re-issued, by Wildside/Brogo, under my William Maltese name, and my latest m/f mainstream romantic/adventure, DARE TO LOVE IN OZ, just out ( https://www.createspace.com/3407866 ), is a William Maltese, too (more enlightened publishers, these days — and, of course, I got tired of being called so many name, having had 29 pseudos, there, at one time). –Anyway, thanks ever so much for stopping by. Hope to run across you (not literally of course) somewhere else along the line. –Hugs, William.
This is kind of funny, considering that just last week I was having a conversation with a genuine, card-carrying gay male writer who thought there was too much explicit sex in m/m fiction.
There’s so much variation in human beings, from the Delicate-Minded Ladies who Protect the Purity of “Real” Romance from Any Hint of (ick!) SEX to the gentlemen who don’t think sex is appropriate to serious fiction, to the gals writing yaoi fantasy that appeals to probably a very few willowy young men, to the women writing two-fisted (or perhaps one-fisted) ass-plugging male porn to the gay authors writing fictionalized memoirs….
I’m somewhere in that mix, and, as others have said, what I read depends on my mood. It doesn’t necessarily depend on what I have in my pants. This is an interesting theory, but like so many declarations that say “There are TWO KINDS of (fill in the blank), it sells human variation pretty far short. There aren’t two kinds of m/m love — or f/f, or m/f. There are thousands.
I think– and this is me speaking as a woman who writes gay romances– that the problem isn’t about what authors are writing, but how their stories are being billed, so to speak.
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Maybe women generally write more emotionally laden stories, and maybe men write more sexually-driven ones. Or not. My contention is that it doesn’t matter because this post, as stated in the subject line, is intended to point out that BUYERS need to BEWARE, or be aware, more like.
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Now, I’m not going to get into who writes what and how. It’s irrelevant, in my opinion. I don’t CARE if someone is male or female, straight or gay. I care that they offer a good story. That’s it. And some days I might want something angsty and emo, while other days I’m more interested in no-holds-barred (or holes) sex. I just want it to be GOOD.
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Romance is a really relative term, changing from person to person. Ask 10, any mix of men and women, straight and gay, and you’ll likely get 10 different answers about what is ‘romantic.’ That said… what we’re talking about in this particular instance is not perception. It’s definition, meaning the way ‘romance’ is described by the publishing industry. Now, perhaps the definition– emotional connection, HEA (or HFN)– needs to be updated because it was mostly set in place ages ago, and was meant to describe the ‘unrealistic drivel’ women chose to read. But that’s another thing I’m not going to get into because it’s a whole other topic.
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The problem, as far as I’m able to tell, is that some readers become rather distressed when they buy something that’s purported to be a romance which turns out to be anything but. And yes, in some cases they’ve just made a poor choice or didn’t bother to look farther than the cover, but… in many, many cases books are mislabeled. Meaning something that’s a stroker is listed as ‘romance.’
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I know several other people commenting here have already said this (I don’t recall names and I didn’t actually read ALL the MANY replies to this topic), but the real issue here is– again in my opinion which doesn’t mean I’m right…? Publishers. Even in the case of authors who have written books that they believe to be romances but don’t fall within the accepted current guidelines of what a ‘romance’ is expected to be, it comes down to the publishers.
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This is not an attempt to pass the buck or to divert attention from the books that are being written, whether by men or women. It’s simply a statement that I personally believe that publishers should KNOW the difference. And on the heels of that knowing, should label books as what they are, rather than listing a ‘one hand read’ (and I do love that description, by the way) as a ‘romance.’
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Yes, the author has some responsibility to tell their publisher(s) what kind of story they’re submitting, but in the end, it’s the publisher(s) who list things as ‘romance’ or ‘erotica’ or some combination of the two.
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I do understand that readers can and do get upset when something isn’t as advertised. Hell, I’m a reader myself and I’ve been blindsided by porny-goodness when I was in the mood for sappy-sweet (just an example; I know there are many degrees between the two). HOWEVER… the only time I feel comfortable with holding an author responsible for the disparity between expectation and reality is when an author promotes such-and-such-book as an epic romance and it turns out to be a 300 page shifter-vampire-ghoul gang-bang on a space-yacht or whatever. (Again, just an example.)
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Okay… much longer than I planned on this post being. Still, there it is. People write what people write. I think it’s down to the publishers to categorise books better. Until that actually happens, I expect authors will be hearing about it from readers.
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Sucks, yes, but there it is.
TC
You’re quite correct in what you said. However, here is one point I would like to make which I did in my comments earlier in the post – the authors do bear some responsibility because in most cases they write the blurbs. I know that some publishers like to ‘polish’ or actually write the blurbs but not always.
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This site has one additional concern. We only review M/M and I mean that in the truest sense of the word: No females having sex with the protagonists. Yet time and time again we’re faced with women in bed with the guys halfway through the book, with no warning. If the authors could add three little words “some M/F sex” in the blurbs we wouldn’t request or buy the books.
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Amber Allure does an excellent job at labelling and most of the time Samhain Publishing and Loose Id do a good job as well, but the others, not so much, even though I have requested that they do so to help the unwary readers and reviewers.
Hiya, Wave. 🙂
I completely get what you’re saying. I do. And in many instances I suppose authors ARE responsible for the blurbs.
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Speaking solely for myself (can you tell my Dad was a lawyer? It’s why I rarely make definitive statements. LOL)… my publishers ask me to give them a two-to-three paragraph synopsis of each story for marketing purposes.
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Now, the sad fact is that I SUCK GIANT HAIRY SWEATY DONKEY BALLS at writing synopses, so I’ve yet to see even one of my offerings appear anywhere but in my initial email. This may not be normal, which means my experience is possibly unique.
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That said, if it’s truly the authors who are leaving out details like “this is a huge fuck-fest” or “there’s a chick in this book that’s getting boned on-page” then it definitely is their fault when people get upset.
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On the other hand, even my craptastic attempts at synopses go to my publisher before they’re… well, published. I don’t think it’s entirely unreasonable to expect that someone– publisher, editor, whomever– might actually read the blurb and say “wait a minute… so-and-so left out the menage gang-bang; maybe it should be mentioned.”
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Now, maybe an author will sometimes leave that sort of thing out, but it’s rarely due to any desire to fool people or trick them into buying a book (I think). After all, I’d rather sell 50 copies to people who know what they’re getting than 100 to people who are going to be angry and possibly so disappointed that they’ll put me on their ‘never buy’ lists.
I’m not saying the publisher is always at fault. But as they’re the ones who are likely to make the most money from a book, I think they should at the very least pay a bit more attention to what they’re saying about the products, whether the author writes the blurb or not. I mean, if they can assign someone to edit an entire novel, how much more time could it possibly take to look at the blurb–all three paragraphs, most times–and make a few changes?
Thanks T.C.
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I’m glad you understand our problem, as readers and reviewers. Just a “buyer beware” sticker to say “this book contains M/F sex”, OR “this book contains hardcore BDSM” OR “this book contains non/con” or “this book is about twincest” and we would get the picture clearly and quickly. That’s not hard for authors AND publishers to include in their blurbs, no matter how poorly written they are.
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On this site we try to educate the unwary reader about what’s in a book and the authors and publishers could help us do our jobs by including brief but pertinent information in their blurbs, especially for those readers who do not have the time to read excerpts.
Wave~
I’m a huge fan of ‘warnings’ for my own books and other peoples’.
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For instance, I once sent a submission in that basically said “Warnings: Alternate historical M/M/M menage, anal sex involving a tail, with mention of whoring, incest, non-con, evil priests and not-on-page, non-graphic M/F sex.”
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For the record, this list did not appear with the blurb, though there was mention of one of the three MCs having numerous mistresses.
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Luckily, nobody who read it seemed put off, or if they did, I haven’t heard about it. Even so, I do think there meeds to be some sort of industry-wide agreement regarding warnings.
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Then again, I also think there should be industry-wide standards for submissions, but that’s a whole other story. LOL
I do understand where readers and especially reviewers are coming from on this subject of putting warnings on covers, but as an author, I have to say I’m against it. Just the idea of putting HEA or HFN signs seems to me to give away the ending of the story. I want a reader to suffer through the plot complications with my characters, fretting over whether and how they will work out. I wouldn’t even begin to know how I would list the ending to Angel Land, e.g. And I’m no more convinced on alerting folks to the possibility of some heterosexual content, in part because, of course, one is giving away some of the plot but, more importantly, there’s no way to describe how it fits into a story. I would have had to put such warnings on at least 2 of the Deadly mystery series, which could well have kept some readers from the books who might otherwise have enjoyed them. In Longhorns, Les and Buck visit a whorehouse. In Lola Dances, both Bryan and Joshua have relations with women. The seduction of the straight or quasi-straight male is a big part of gay fiction, and that is often best demonstrated by showing (or at least talking about) that het sex. The truth is, if I had to put such warnings on my book covers, I would be turning away a great many readers who, they assure me, enjoy my books. Now, I do realize that there are differences in how such material is handled, but there’s no way that could be made clear by putting some kind of label on a book cover. I’d feel better thinking readers trusted me to do right by them.
Just my thoughts.
Victor
Hi Victor
I think you misunderstood part of what I was trying to say.
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I never want or expect an author to indicate whether a book is HEA or HFN. That’s not what I’m asking. What I’m concerned about is I have read books that fully 1/3 of the story is het sex yet they bill themselves as M/M “romance”. Oft times one of the protags is not even in the picture for a good deal of the book while the other one is with a woman, but miraculously the two guys end up together at the end and have a wonderful HEA ???
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I have been around long enough to know and trust a number of authors and I have a fairly good idea of what they write. I have reviewed books on the site with brief M/F sex and I state that clearly in the review, and whether or not it’s on page sex. M/M readers don’t want to be surprised by het sex in their books and they request that we include this information in the books we review where this occurs.
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I do the same if the book is PWP so that those readers who like this sub genre would get out their cheque books.
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What the reviewers and the readers (and there are a lot of them) don’t want is a book that’s pretending to be M/M when it’s mainly a het romance with a couple of guys thrown in to give it the flavour of M/M. Because M/M has become so popular, a number of authors who normally write het are now adding separate pairings (het and two guys together) to entice the M/M buyers. This is similar to what publishers do with menage “romances” (M/M/F or M/F/M) which most M/M readers hate, and I’m including myself in that group.
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In terms of the Deadly books, Tom started off as straight and became bi or gay when he met Stanley. I indicate in the reviews of the books where he falls off the wagon (if appropriate) and gets together with a woman briefly, so that any reader would know what to expect. On this site I read and review the majority of your books and I indicate the type of content if I think that the readers should be aware of anything they may find not to their taste, before they buy. This is in no way an attempt to give away any of the major plot points or include spoilers. I would do the same if a book included rape or if a murder was particularly brutal or gory or if there was hardcore BDSM.
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Most authors are honest and don’t attempt to fool the readers. Part of the problem is that publishers do not provide basic information so that the readers have an idea of what the book is about. Amber Allure has the best information on its site in describing the content of its books, and here’s what it had to say about a recent release –
>>Genres: Gay / Erotic Horror / Dark Fantasy / BDSM / Contains Some Secondary Heterosexual (M/F) And Lesbian (F/F) Content
Heat Level: 3
Advisory: This book contains graphic violence, hardcore bondage and punishment, torture and blood play. May not be suitable for the more sensitive reader. <<
Since I don’t like most of the content I will not request this book for review and any reader would also know by going to their website what the book is about. On the other hand those readers who love the content would buy the book knowing in advance what they are getting.
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>>This is what Loose Id has in terms of warnings
Publisher’s Note: This title …. contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find objectionable: Anal play/intercourse, male/male sexual situations, masturbation, ménage (m/f/m, m/m/f/m/m).<<
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Samhain has similar warnings. However the rest of the publishers are hit and miss, mostly miss.
As an avid reader, my biggest complaint is that in the “blurb” of most titles you find anywhere but Loose ID and Samhain you actually find little to nothing about what is truly inside the pages of a book. I do enjoy the writings of people such as D.J. Manly, Anah Crow (who still inputs a bit more romance into hers,but hey) and Erastes, Alex Beecroft,etc. I’ve not read any of the other authors mentioned here,but have no problem with reading about what men are sometimes (or mostly) looking for, but have to say that I agree that if it’s a female author,I’d like to know up front.
I’m going to step out on a limb here and be accused of stereotyping, but have found in the course of 40 years of marriage and talking to the men who I’ve come into contact with in this time frame that most men think of sex in an entirely different perspective than most women do. It always amazed me that they could separate sex from marriage so that when they were “busted” cheating on their S O’s or spouses the “cheatee” couldn’t comprehend it was simply “sex” and in most cases had nothing to do with any type of lack from the person cheated on. The biggest problem I had with that was if the cheatee became the cheater it was a whole nother kettle of fish.
Basic ending here is that I want to know at least the possibility of what is truly within those pages so that if I’m not in the mood for down and dirty I can at least note it for another time. A book is a terrible thing to waste, but misleading the readers is a good way to stop being read.
Victor –
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if an author is new to me, i don’t trust them yet. trust is earned. and the way an author earns mine is by not surprising me with certain things that go counter to genre expectations. if you write genre romance, you don’t have to advertise HFN or HEA — it is a requirement. if you go against that, don’t publish it as genre romance, please.
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because i pick up different books for different moods, for different purposes, what i expect from them can differ hugely. labels are not the be-all and end-all, of course, but they help me decide whether a specific book might fit my purpose at the time. the better a fit we achieve, the more likely that i enjoy a book and recommend it to my friends, and buy the next book from that author, and maybe even their entire backlist.
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when i pick up porn/erotica, i want to get turned on and (hopefully) get off. HFRN (happy for right now) is good enough. no strings attached is fine. i might enjoy it more if there is an emotional connection between the characters, but i don’t expect (and in fact am probably suspicious of) instant love proclamations from strangers.
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when i pick up romance, i want to feel comforted by the thought that whatever obstacles the characters have to overcome are indeed overcome, and don’t smack them down for good. there better not be a break-up at the end! or, oh ghods, character death. i’ll never touch the author’s books again if that happens. when i read romance i don’t want real-life endings. i get cold water over the head from real life in sufficient quantity that i want to escape from that.
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when i pick up m/m i don’t want m/f or f/f or m/f/m sex in it without warning. heck, i really don’t want any non m/m sex in it at all, though it can happen behind the scenes. if i am warned, i might read it anyway, if i am in the mood for that. if i am not warned and come across it, i’ll be ticked off at the author. girl parts turn me off! since greedy buggers in publishing who think about their gain more than they think about the reader violate that, i am now extraordinarily careful whom i buy — if it’s a previously m/f author who seems to have suddenly discovered m/m, i steer clear unless the book comes recommended from a trusted source.
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and in fact some people’s warnings are also other people’s “buy now!” enticements. IMO it works in an author’s and publisher’s favour if they list the biggies after the blurb: character death, rape, noncon, which sexes get it on, BDSM (+detail), violence.
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Jesse mentioned Amber Allure — great example. i like Amber Allure and its authors, because they do all that. i trust them. they give nothing important away with their content descriptions, because knowing that X happens in a book isn’t a spoiler in genre, and my enjoyment of a book doesn’t lie so much in what the author does, but more in HOW it is done.
Sorry, Pir, but I don’t write romance genre books, I write Victor J. Banis books, and the only requirements I recognize are those imposed by my stories and or my characters, and of course, by my own standards. My computer is chock full of stories that have never been published because I did not consider them good enough for my readers (and none, I might say, for lack of happy ending.) I have turned down offers from publishers who wanted me to make what I regarded as fundamental changes in manuscripts. So long as it is to be published with my name on it, my own integrity requires that it be my story as I want it told.
As to earning a reader’s trust, it may surprise some to know that I consider that a two way street. I trust my readers to have sufficient discernment to appreciate what I have to say. In return, they have a right to expect me to say it well, in some new and interesting way. When I pray for my writing, as I have said elsewhere, I do not pray for the words, I pray for the courage to make them new and fresh. I have no illusions of greatness. I think my talent is a modest one indeed; but I have been doing this for many years and I almost certainly wouldn’t still be doing it if I didn’t make one or two people happy along the way. My books and stories are reviewed regularly (and nicely) on many sites, including this one; if a reader doesn’t feel she can trust me then, as a regular here, she ought to know whether she can trust these reviewers. If not, what’s the point? I can supply links to other review sites as well. Additionally, I write blog essays here and elsewhere, and from time to time post excerpts from my books on various sites, including my own website. If a reader has doubts, he or she has ample opportunity to see if she finds my writing and her reading tastes compatible. Many, apparently, do. Not all, of course. I am unlikely to satisfy those looking for cookie cutter entertainment. I have no quarrel with them. Cookie cutters are useful utensils. It is worth noting, however, that I don’t have any in my kitchen. People seem to like my cookies nonetheless. I am glad when they do, totally unconcerned if they do not. I feel quite the same about my writing.
Wave,
since that’s MY new release, let me add a bit.
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The book in question is erotic horror, in the vein of the HOT BLOOD series. It’s not really a romance. It has 17% sex by word count. And yes, our lead male is omni-sexual. He bears a faint resemblence to Errol Flynn and lives by Flynn’s motto: “If it moves, I fuck it.” I knew it would be completely unacceptable for this site.
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I’ve also been informed the warning is inadequate to the content of the book, by a reader.
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HEA doesn’t really give it away. I just finished a book with an HEA where the hero lost EVERYTHING in pursuit of it. He got true love, but he’s not sure the cost was worth it.
Angelia
As I said here –
>>On the other hand those readers who love the content would buy the book knowing in advance what they are getting.<< The objective is to let the readers know what to expect so that they are not surprised and I applaud AA for doing such a good job on its warnings for all books, not just yours. ** >>I’ve also been informed the warning is inadequate to the content of the book, by a reader.<< I can't imagine what the reader thought was omitted - I think the warning said it all. 😀 ** I have reviewed a few horrors, mainly by Rick R. Reed who also is published by AA, and I make sure that the reviews contain the appropriate warnings. I must say though that none of Rick's books rise to the level of this one. 😀
M. L. Rhodes said, “I think the real difference here isn’t about the gender of the author, but about the genre in which the author is writing. There is a difference, a big difference in my opinion, between stroke fiction (gay erotica) and gay erotic romance. . . .
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“I don’t write with a specific gender of audience in mind. I don’t think, as I write, ‘I’d better stick to this type of thing because that’s what the guy readers want,’ or ‘I’d better include this because it’s what the women readers want.’ Quite frankly, my *characters* in each story, their personalities, dictate what happens, how physical they get with one another, how much emotion they share.”
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Yes, exactly. Mr. Maltese, I’ve read your follow-up comments, which are a helpful clarification. Perhaps next time you write an article like this, you could say “many men like” and “many women like” rather than simply “men like” and “women like”? Because when you said that women aren’t interested in stories set in “back rooms, parks, truck stops, and funky alleys,” all I could think was: Mr. Maltese needs to spend a bit more time with leatherdykes. 🙂
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My porn stories are on the soft end of gay porn (think John Preston in his romantic moments) and on the hard end of m/m. My readership for those stories seems to be equally divided in terms of gender. I’ve got slash sites linking to me, and I’ve got leathermen’s sites linking to me. A few years back, the largest number of people following links to my Website were people who had (1) read the recommendations of my stories at slash sites or (2) read my stories at Nifty. So I’m really not convinced that there’s a hard-and-fast divide between stories suitable for gay-porn readers and stories suitable for m/m readers, the way you’ve described it in your original article.
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That being said, I’m in complete sympathy with you about it being wrong for readers to project their own tastes onto stories intended for an audience with different tastes. This unfortunately happens all the time: readers of m/m fiction condemn writers of jerk-off stories for not writing romance, readers of gay porn condemn writers of m/m romance for not writing porn, hard SF readers condemn writers of soft SF for not writing hard SF . . . Really, I wish that the readers of this world would understand that there is variety in literary tastes.
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(*Heading off to discuss with my leatherboy what m/m romances he’s reading this week.*)
Dusk:
“That being said, I’m in complete sympathy with you about it being wrong for readers to project their own tastes onto stories intended for an audience with different tastes. This unfortunately happens all the time”
yes, it does. i am currently arguing with some people in a book review group that rating all PWP with 0 is entirely unfair — if it is advertised as a hot, sexy romp, it should be judged that way, and not blamed because the reader expected tender emotion and loving romance. because even among PWPs there’s fabulous writing and execrable writing, and _that_ is what i’d like to see judged, not the mere fact that there’s little plot. sometimes PWP is just what i want.
and btw, thanks for speaking up — i hadn’t heard of you before, and now you’re on my “to read” list because you sound eminently sensible, and your words don’t make me anticipate throwing your books against the wall because of cardboard gender stereotyping.
Dusk
>>That being said, I’m in complete sympathy with you about it being wrong for readers to project their own tastes onto stories intended for an audience with different tastes. This unfortunately happens all the time: readers of m/m fiction condemn writers of jerk-off stories for not writing romance, readers of gay porn condemn writers of m/m romance for not writing porn, hard SF readers condemn writers of soft SF for not writing hard SF . . . Really, I wish that the readers of this world would understand that there is variety in literary tastes.<< * Thank you for making this point. As has been said here and elsewhere, we all look for different things when we open a book but readers can't lay their expectations on the backs of the writers. If the book is well written and doesn't contain too many editorial and spelling errors and stereotypes, and the genre is what I'm in the mood for that day, that's what I'm looking for. There is no specific type of book for females or men, especially today with the internet playing such a huge part in book purchases. I read a range of genres and I would defy anyone to put me in any particular category of reader. * I appreciate your comments and thanks again for taking the time.
@pir wrote:
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“because even among PWPs there’s fabulous writing and execrable writing”
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In certain literary communities I’ve never seen a PWP *without* a plot. It was simply that the plot centered on a sexual encounter. That seems to me to be as legitimate a topic for literary consideration as any other aspect of human life.
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“you’re on my ‘to read’ list”
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Oh, how nice. 🙂 In that case, I should clarify that most of what I write doesn’t fall into the porn category. I mainly write friendship fiction, gay fiction, and gay erotic love stories, with an occasional heterosexual love story. But honestly, I find the dividing line between all those genres to be extremely thin. My porn stories are also friendship stories.
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@Wave wrote:
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“There is no specific type of book for females or men, especially today with the internet playing such a huge part in book purchases.”
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This is a good point – Internet access has changed the way many people read. I know that I wouldn’t be writing gay historical fantasy today if I hadn’t run across a bunch of slash authors writing SF/F and historical fiction. Until then, I’d assumed (despite the example of Mary Renault) that gay fiction = contemporary fiction, so I’d kept all my gay fantasy stories in my head, thinking that they wouldn’t find an audience.
So basically you are saying please ladies, don’t call my books unromantic, they are–for men although not for you.
And ‘oh, don’t moan that my romantic stories aren’t romantic, I didn’t write them for you anyway’.
Hmm…
I’m no where near rich and only buy M/M stories from few authors whose previous works I’ve already read (what are friends for if not for lending us books) and loved, whose stories I regard as romantic (which details is really a personal concept), and I don’t bother moaning at authors, I just don’t buy their works if I think they suck (and, in this case, unromantic). My fav M/M author happens to be a man but I’d still love his works if he were a woman or a hermaphrodite or a werewolf.
So probably that’s why you didn’t get many complaints from men who read your works expecting romance, it might not be because they can very much appreciate you label of for-men-only-romance, perhaps they just didn’t bother, like me. Just a thought.
This ‘article’ is somewhat unpleasant, to be honest. Gender generalisation ahoy. However there’s still a point to it, can’t be denied there are differences between women and men in taste of ‘romance’ (though I don’t think it to be that many or that huge, outside from social stigma), and I agree readers should be more careful when buying, and shouldn’t expect what was not offered in the first place. However, I do find some ‘warnings’ or blurps to be carrying too much information, I rarely read them because for me they’re spoilers which spoil the story.
Nice one! If I could write like this I would be well happpy. The more I see articles of such quality as this (which is rare), the more I think there might be a future for the Net. Keep it up, as it were.
FINALLY This is what I have been harping at for the longest time re: males writing m/m books. I like that there is not a long lead in I never believed that men needed(most men) a deep emotional attachment to begin relations. That’s why I tired of m/f books. I hated the pretense of a long lead in.Now that being said,I still like romance,that’s why I read historicals.
Well, here it is, a year after I first wrote this article, and, little did I realize that it would cause quite the stir that it did. As a matter of fact, I figured that it would be of interest for only a few days in December 2009, after I wrote it, so I only really checked in to comment on comments for that minimum amount of time I incorrectly assumed it would be of any interest to anyone. Seems I should have stuck around a little while longer and kept the conversation going.
As it is, I’m back only now, to revisit my piece, although I’ve been to the JesseWave site on and off (as I’m sure have all of you). I needed to get the article’s specific URL for my files, and, in case, I ever figure out out how to get an entry on Wikipedia. While I was here, I decided to check in again, and found all sorts of wonderful comments that I hadn’t seen before. Slap me in the face with a wet noodle…or, considering the subject matter, with a…
Anyway, folks, while I’m here, I want to apologize to all of you who took the bother to comment and whom it would seem, albeit unintentionally, I ignored. It wasn’t because I didn’t find all of what you said as valid, it’s just that I didn’t dream, as I said, that my little piece, would cause quite the reaction that it did.
And, of course, I want to thank all of you who did take the time and make the effort to check in and comment.
Next time, of course, I do something, here, I’ll pay particular attention to the entire potential life-span of a particular piece. Although as soon as I do that, you can bet that no one will even bother reading it, let alone comment on it.
Do hope you all had a great holiday season. And don’t forget to pick up a copy of the Borgo Press reference book just out, DRAQUALIAN SILK: A COLLECTOR’S AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL GUIDE TO THE BOOKS OF WILLIAM MALTESE 1969-2010, which should leave no doubts to anyone as to what any of MY 180-books are all about, as regards who’s fucking whom, with what, when and where (plus the first three paragraphs from all of my so-far books).
William Maltese
26 December 2010
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