Romance Novelists as Literary Rock Stars

Love Between the Covers, a new film by Laurie Kahn (Tupperware!, A Midwife’s Tale), shows the romance writing industry to be “one of the last meritocracies left on the planet.”

In the current issue, Macleans magazine takes a close look at Kahn’s documentary, which is debuting right now at the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto.

Romance writers may get little respect from the literary world, but they are, without a doubt, its rock stars. “We don’t really care what the establishment thinks, because we’re paying off our houses,” says Bates. “Readers vote with their wallets. I think the big-publisher business models will have to become more author-friendly if they want to retain their authors.” 

Or perhaps they’ll have to embrace diversity. The notion that steampunk, for example, wouldn’t sell, or would be too difficult to market, is a sensibility at odds with other forms of popular entertainment—from television to Hollywood movies—where many producers have realized that diverse ideas and new voices do well in the mainstream. Because publishers sell books to retailers, as opposed to readers themselves, they have an often confused perception of what readers want and who reads what.

The full piece is here. You can view a trailer below.