In print publishing, too, there's a niche market for gay romance. I think, though, that any of these "original slash" writers would probably want to study the gay romance genre before submitting: it has rules too. Gay Romance is lighthearted, more or less, -- no, I mean it has a lot of humor running through it, is usually deeply set in the gay community for at least part of the story, and has a happy ending. The dimensions of angst are different -- gay romances are really worried about appearance, coolness, getting ahead in conventional ways.
There is a difference in how sex writing is approached in Gay Romance v. "original slash." (it's a stupid title, I think, but we're probably stuck with it, and it's clearly its own genre with its own following and its own conventions: it reads quite differently from the sort of romantic writing you find on the gay authors' archives, and from the sort of writing you find in the gay mens' shelves in the bookstore)I wish I could describe the difference. But you'd know which genre you were reading if you picked up just a couple of paragraphs of sex writing.
There's another genre of Heavy Gay Relationship books which usually ends quite ambivalently, and often disastrously. They're shelved in the bookstore on the same shelves as the gay romances, but you can tell which is which: the gay romances come packaged in covers that look like Old Navy ads, featuring a well-dressed (or exquisitely swimsuited) handsome young man, or two of them. The heavy relationship books have arty covers, not always gloomy, but always with important typography (as opposed to the romping typography of the gay romances).
Only some gay romances are put out by specialty houses (Alyson, Gay Men's Press, etc). Others are put out by mainstream houses in mainstream light fiction imprints, but they get these particular covers.
Somebody who knows about the small-but-not-too-small publishers should explain how they function.
Gay Men's Press was bought by the Millivres Group, which has recently decided to stop publishing under any of their imprints (Diva Books, Milivres, Prowler Press, Zipper books, etc.)
I don't belive Hunt has published a book with them in some time.
Heretic Books also published at least one novel by Hunt in the mid 90s.
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There is a difference in how sex writing is approached in Gay Romance v. "original slash." (it's a stupid title, I think, but we're probably stuck with it, and it's clearly its own genre with its own following and its own conventions: it reads quite differently from the sort of romantic writing you find on the gay authors' archives, and from the sort of writing you find in the gay mens' shelves in the bookstore)I wish I could describe the difference. But you'd know which genre you were reading if you picked up just a couple of paragraphs of sex writing.
There's another genre of Heavy Gay Relationship books which usually ends quite ambivalently, and often disastrously. They're shelved in the bookstore on the same shelves as the gay romances, but you can tell which is which: the gay romances come packaged in covers that look like Old Navy ads, featuring a well-dressed (or exquisitely swimsuited) handsome young man, or two of them. The heavy relationship books have arty covers, not always gloomy, but always with important typography (as opposed to the romping typography of the gay romances).
Only some gay romances are put out by specialty houses (Alyson, Gay Men's Press, etc). Others are put out by mainstream houses in mainstream light fiction imprints, but they get these particular covers.
Somebody who knows about the small-but-not-too-small publishers should explain how they function.
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Romentics only publishes gay romances.
Seventh Window publishes them, too. (They did the historical THE PRICE OF TEMPTATION, for instance, with a fun cover www.priceoftemptation.com.)
Gay Men's Press is no more, FWIW.
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I don't belive Hunt has published a book with them in some time.
Heretic Books also published at least one novel by Hunt in the mid 90s.
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