Although the article is in French, there is an abstract in English:
Even today, it is far from easy for a woman author to achieve recognition while working in an almost exclusively feminine genre, despised by the mostly male critics who wield power in the symbolic domain. Authors of romance novels are seen almost as computers and rarely escape anonymity. They write « low-grade women's fiction » supposedly devoid of interest, and their identity is overshadowed by that of the publishing house, like Harlequin, or by that of a specific collection. However, Eleanor Marie Robertson, a housewife from Maryland who used to read romance novels, became the best-selling author Nora Roberts. Her books sell by the millions in the United States and they are published in France outside of the « romance ghetto ». In spite of being seen as a woman writing cheap novels for women, she has been able to take advantage of all the possibilities open to her in the field of romantic fiction to achieve success. She has written across paraliterary genres (from romance novels to detective novels) and has managed to occupy a central place within media culture, forcing Francophone romance publishers to modify their attitude with respect to her production. Even though she operates within the parameters of a minor genre she has achieved a certain degree of recognition, different from that of literary authors, but significant in the domain of media culture. This article attempts to identify the promotional and image strategies adopted by this author in her writing of romance novels – a genre generally reviled mostly because of its feminine connotations.
Although the article is in French, there is an abstract in English: