In short, what I tried to say was: Thank goodness for awesome, passionate readers like you guys who do speak up, who know the genre, who feel strongly about it. Like Denise said, all we can do is change perceptions, one person at a time.

Good to see you, Denise! Loved your long post and do know what you’re saying about perceptions. If the people who are so busy judging “those” books by what they read in the 80s would pick a few up today, I think they’d be shocked. In a good way. It’s getting them to try it though…

I’m one of those people who often scours sites for authors I’m familiar with and once a new book is out, I’ll go buy in the store if I’m headed in that direction (or I’ll just buy online). When walking into the store, I usually walk with purpose. The last time I went, an employee saw me walk directly to a book, pick it up and then walk to another author’s book, pick up one of those, etc. She stopped me and said she was relatively new there, wasn’t ‘hip’ on much romance, but has read a few books in the genre to become more knowledgeable in her recommendations. She saw that I didn’t peruse the aisles but knew exactly what I wanted, so we got into a discussion about good books in the various subgenres: paranormal, historical, contemp. and erotic. I gave her lots of food for fodder. Actually when I came back into the store a month later, she made a bee line for me when she saw me and said every book I’d recommended, she liked. Heh. She even took my phone number down for ‘future help’. LOL Anyway… She mentioned a lot of the phenomenon that you’ve listed.

One of the issues I think plagues romances is of course the purple prose of yesteryear. Your mom’s Harlequins, so to speak. That’s not to say the bodice rippers are not present in recent releases but it truly is a stereotype of romance. It makes some women feel silly for buying this guilty pleasure, perhaps not because they’re embarrassed to read the book but because of how they made be perceived for reading it. Because after all, romance is fluff, dontcha know? ~roll eyes~

Another issue I think is how NY has treated erotic romance. I won’t get started. Well not too much. Ok, fine. I will. Erotic romance has the WORST reputation. At first, as you know, anything too spicy was in the Erotica section next to the Women’s and Sexual self-help. Obnoxious books like PENTHOUSE LETTERS pretty much summed up what was perceived as the sub-genre. Written porn. Then the e-pub industry exploded. Erotic ROMANCE became all the rage. NY took note. And thought, ‘we can do better’. No. They can’t. But I digress. They started publishing erotic romances, which then of course, made it to the romance shelves. But as I’m sure many of you have noticed. The books became more and more erotica. Sex by page 3. Plots that made no sense, or plots that were barely there. And unfortunately many of our GREAT erotic romance authors have capitulated to these NY demands. This has NOT helped the romance genre in gaining any sort of credence in the fiction world.

I think NY is taking note of these, because imprints such as Aphrodisia have decreased sales. Are they still publishing? I don’t know. I stopped writing/reviewing anything by this imprint because most of their stories were sexfests. I want CONFLICT. I want ACTION. I want CHARACTERS to love! Berkley Heat and Avon Red are a little better, but truly I pore over their blurbs and even skim a few paragraphs here and there in the book before buying. That’s how bad some of these books have gotten. Do I blame it on the authors? I’m trying not to. As you know I have romance author friends. And some have shared with me their battles with their editors for ‘more sex, less plot’. So, authors that I already know can write, I try not to blame them (although, as somewhat of a purist, I do get annoyed that they’re allowing the industry to dictate how they should write), but authors who I’ve only known to write erotic? Yeah, sometimes I confess I holler, ‘how the hades did this person ever get published?!’ The one problem with that sort of response from readers often will prevent the reader from purchasing another book by this author, even if she hops sub-genre fences and moves on to, say, paranormal or historical. Because the bad taste is already there.

This whole erotic romance debacle is why I stopped reviewing for RT. LOL Ask Maya. She was pissed when I told her that. Because I loved her erotic romances and always gave them great reviews! Still do, actually, but I felt like I’d become just another snarky erotic romance reviewer in general. And for a while, I couldn’t even read erotics, because I was afraid of what I’d find. Now, I’m easing back into the sub-genre again, but I have to confess I read much more suspense, paranormal, contemporary, and have come full circle back to historicals. But there are many who view Romance as a whole the same way that Erotic Romance is viewed: without much credence, and ‘all about the sex’.

Okay, I’m verbose. I know. Sorry for manipulating the comment section. I’m very passionate about this subject as you can tell.

But I do think the Romance section has such a bad reputation is due to perceptions, be it perceived as ‘fluff’ or ‘trash’. We, as readers, and you as novelists, just need to grin and bear it, all the while changing perception through education, one person at a time.

I don’t sneak to the section.. More like “Sprint” towards it like a child to the toy section. LOL. And I’ve chatted often with the employees while getting checked out. I remember when Johanna Lindsay’s The Present came out. I turned the book and went “Awesome! A new Malory book.” A woman sort of beside me goes “A new Malory book you say?” Snatched a copy and she hurried her butt up to the counter. When I finally went to the counter and this woman goes “Find everything alright.” I was giddy about finding Lindsay had another Malory book. I of course mentioned I did and we started chit-chatting about that series of books. It was just great to know there were others out there at the time who liked the same series I did.

If I can’t find what I’m looking for, I always ask. I’ve even had to get them to move a few (just a few) new books from a center aisle display to the Romance section so that loyal romance readers can find them as well as grabbing center aisle foot traffic.

I always share recommendations with some of the friendlier employees as well as the ladies who work in the childrens section since they don’t have the time to explore other areas of the store. They always want to see what I have in my stack for the week.