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| Actual dime novel cover/ Syracuse U. library. |
In Friday's post I argued that those of us who read, write and love Science Fiction Romance need to move beyond the old issue of whether SF and romance belong together and start asking ourselves some tougher questions. This next one might be the toughest one of all.
Can we move beyond our “dime novel”
niche? In the latter part of
the 19th and the first part of the 20th Century, the new
genres of science fiction, mystery and romance were launched as cheap short
stories sold for as little as a penny (“penny dreadfuls”) and later as novels
sold for the extravagant price of a dime.
This “pulp fiction” was not known for the quality of its production or
its prose, and it earned its authors almost nothing, but it did keep its
working class audience supplied with an endless stream of (mostly forgettable)
stories. Yes, some great authors did
emerge from this sea of words—Edgar Allen Poe, among the earliest, Edgar Rice
Burroughs, E.E. “Doc” Smith and others later on—but many others remain unknown
today.
The digital revolution of recent years has
opened up the world of publishing to new authors and new genres in much the
same way. Got a manuscript and agents
and the legacy publishers won’t give you the time of day? No worries.
There are dozens of digital-first and digital-only publishers to
try. If you don’t have the patience to submit to these publishers, you can always self-publish, with any number of helpers standing ready
to provide editing, cover artwork, formatting and other services (for a
price).
Digital publishing has been very welcoming to
SFR, putting out dozens of titles over the past few years as digital-first or
digital-only. And yet, the digital
revolution has come with its own problems.
The best-selling digital titles across the board are erotica, and SFR
seems to be no exception. Visit the
website of the oldest and most established digital publisher online and it is
visually impossible to sort out the strictly romantic SFR from the erotic
SFR. I like a good alien sandwich as
much as the next gal, but that’s not what I’m looking for every time. And it gives the impression, like the pulp
fiction of old, that this is all we are.
The quality of self-pubbed titles (and even
those from some digital houses) varies wildly and a few bad apples can really
spoil the barrel. Get burned a few
times and a reader may begin to blame 1) digital publishing or 2) SFR.
Pricing is an ongoing conundrum and finding
the sweet spot for a digital offering is anyone’s guess. The idea that giving away books in hopes of
gaining readers has become so entrenched in the digital world that it is almost
a lost cause to argue against it.
Self-pubbers, especially, believe giving their hard work away for free
or for $.99 will eventually get them a loyal audience. Personally, I believe this practice drags us
all down. Because of the profusion of
free stuff, readers have begun to expect to read for free. That only encourages piracy. In art as in life, you get what you pay
for. You should expect to pay for
quality work.
Digital titles also tend to be short—novella
length or shorter. Since we can assume
that the cost of producing a longer novel is not a major factor influencing the
publishers here, what is driving this trend?
Is it truly that our readers don’t want to read longer stories? Or that the current readers aren’t
interested? Or are we settling for
stories that feature the same old kickass heroines and emotionally distant
heroes, few secondary characters, a single, easily resolved plot and no
subplots, a quickly sketched world and the clichéd aliens to go with it? This is pulp fiction at its worst—or our
version of category romance. It has its
place, I suppose, but we need to move beyond it or we will never “break out” in
the market or in readers’ minds.
Finally, how do we find the gold beneath the dross—and
make sure it shines? When was the last time you were so excited by a science
fiction romance novel you’d read that you just had to tell someone about
it? What SFR author’s books will you
rush to buy without even stopping to ask what they’re about? Where do you go consistently to get
recommendations you trust about the best in new SFR? (This last question, at least, I have an
answer for—Heather Massey at The Galaxy Express is my go-to for reading recommendations.)
We, as a budding “industry”, need to do a
better job of sorting through all the masses of titles out there to make it
easy for readers to find the kind of SFR they’re looking for—military, space
opera, “hearth and home” (Heather’s term for mundane or Earth-based SFR and I love it!), erotica, science thriller—and
find the authors they’ll like.
There is a multi-blog effort afoot (of which
Spacefreighters Lounge hopes to be a part) to do an SFR/mainstream author
comparison, as in “if you like Sherrilyn Kenyon’s League Series you’ll like Marcella Burnard’s Enemy Within”. A new online
magazine, the Sci Fi Romance Quarterly, launching in November and edited by
K.S. Augustin, Diane Dooley and Heather Massey, will also be devoted to all
things SFR, including book reviews. And,
of course, there are the blogs and websites listed here on SL that stay on the
cutting edge of SFR.
These things will help, but they are only a
beginning as we move into the next phase of advocating for science fiction
romance. What other questions should we be asking, and where will we find the answers?
Cheers, Donna
