Quote:
Originally Posted by Blossom
It seems to me you may be a little confused on the genre. The ones speaking up in this thread read mainly romance and own a ton of romance books. I invite you hang out with us in our little monthly Romance thread in the deals forum if you wish to get a better idea of romance books. It's isn't hard to identify what a romance is or not. Only non romance readers seems to be confused on the matter. Those of who read mainly romance has a good idea of what it is and what it isn't.
I don't get why shelving is a big deal here. Anyone can mislabel a book's genre. I've seen Westerns in the romance section!  The real issue here is Romance has become a genre that is easily definable and RWA's even has guidelines for a book to be accepted for a RITA they just threw out the books with a strong romantic elements category because they felt it wasn't REAL romance. |
Oh no, I get that many people define it as you do. And I did ask how YOU defined it, not whether the industry might include broader definitions. I was specifically interested in how you defined it so I did get my answer. Thank you!
I don't think every reader has to define it by the same standards or use Harlequin as the epitome. There's plenty of room to use the term in different ways/context or for some readers to feel they read romance that aren't defined that way. That's why I asked. It helps to know what the expectation is for why someone might like publishers versus indies or have issues with the labeling/terms. I was curious about it, so I asked!