Free For All Friday: Last Time I Checked - it wasn't 1950 anymore

I wasn’t sure whether to title today’s rant what I did or “Are you kidding me right now?!?!” with a bunch of &@! To Bleep out the four and five letter words that I really want to say. Which is what happens when I happen upon what I’m about to rant about.

                So, let’s get to what I’m talking about, shall we? The last time I checked, it wasn’t the 1950’s anymore. Jim Crowe laws are abolished, the outcome of Loving v. Virginia is now celebrated every June and poodle skirts are now part of art department costume jewelry.

                If this is correct, and I’m not stuck in a time warp, then explain to me why the only way my interracial themed romance books will be published the way I want them to be is if I go to an indy publisher or open up something myself, so I can do it my way?

                Let me explain. About 13 years ago, I was kicking around the idea of writing strictly interracial romance (black male, white female to be more exact) but I really wanted to be published when I grew up, so I wasn’t sure that I should, since I didn’t see a big market for it.

                Then one day I was at a bargain bookstore and ran across a bm/ww book, published by Kensington Press. I got 18 types of excited, bought the book, ran home, plopped on the couch and didn’t move until I was done reading it.

                It was GREAT. The plot was awesome, the editing was on point, I researched the company and off I went on becoming a strictly interracial couple romance writer. I bookmarked the site and decided that they were who I was going to submit to when I was ready.

                “When I was ready” didn’t happen until about 9 years later when I was in the middle of writing The Wrong Side of the Mississippi, again. I had Northern Lights and Learning the Hard Way ready, but I just knew that Wrong Side was the one I needed to lead off with.  So I went straight to

Kensington to see what my requirements were, and about fell out of my seat. They weren’t taking submissions that were black male and white female. They would take black female and any other race of male, but they weren’t buying what I was selling.

                So after picking myself up and dusting myself off, I said “Well they aren’t the only game in town, I’ll go to Harlequin.” I wanted to write for them since my early twenties anyway, so I was good with that. Harlequin was having a contest called “So You Think You Can Write?” and I was sure I could win it, because Wrong Side is just that good. So I hit the link to the guidelines and again, my jaw hit the floor. They don’t take bm/ww either. They had the same rules that Kensington did as well.

                I spent two days researching big publishing houses and they all had the same guidelines. One told me that if I changed my characters, they would accept me. *blank stare* For those of you who know me, you know that I would never see my name on the front cover of a book, than change who I am or what I believe in just to appease some suit.

                So I started looking at indy publishing houses and every single one of them were open to what I was writing. In fact, Wrong Side was what I sent to BraveGirl (when it was the now defunct Queen Midas Books) when she originally signed me. First publisher I sent it to, it got picked up.

                Outside of bragging rights, I said that last part for a reason. If the manuscript is good, then what does it matter what race the characters are?

                In a world where the literary industry is being littered with remakes and cookie cutter stories, why isn’t there room for well written stories with interracial couples? There’s vampire/human, vampire/werewolf and shapeshifter/human and witch/human, so why can’t it be black and white?

At my first book signing, another author picked up Northern Lights part one and said “Young adult interracial??? You don’t see a lot of that.” As she was handing me money for the book.

In a world where that is becoming more and more the norm, my question is “why not?”
              

  If the answer is as simple as “paranormal is in and regular romance is out” then I’ll back down and take my lumps. Fads come in and out and styles go retro all the time, so I’ll just keep doing me until what I write is back in.

But if the answer is because the powers that be still don’t want to see black men and white women together, then that’s something we need to talk about. Instead of doing what they want to see, these executives need to put their finger on the pulse of their readers and see what they want to read about. And what gender are 98% of romance readers? Women.

I keep hearing that “Racism is dead. We have a black president!” (That’s a whole other rant – don’t worry, I won’t go off in a tangent.) If it is, we need to start acting like it and accepting all forms of literature (as long as it’s good, of course) into our companies. We need to give the readers what they want, not what certain people think we need to see. If it’s really not about race, then censoring black male/white female books shouldn’t be happening.

With the emergence of self-publishing and Indy companies, it’s making the market harder to get a head in, even if it’s easier to break into. People are shying away from the bigger companies because of issues like these.

Indy publishing houses don’t always have the financial backing to help with pesky things like marketing. So we have to do it ourselves, but having the freedom to write what we want, the way we want them, is worth the tradeoff.

Honestly, I was really disappointed in Harlequinn and it saddens me that I can’t write for them. I’m always going to be true to who I am, so there’s no way that my books will ever change just to get my foot in the door. But the end of the day, I have to do what I’m passionate about. Because that’s my motto. Do it with passion, or not at all.