In the late 2010s, US romance publishing underwent an astonishing change. Previously, same-sex couples were all but nonexistent in romances released by major publishers. By 2022, every large publisher in the United States issued romances featuring same-sex couples: A few also published bisexual, trans, or polyamorous romances. This article turns to neo-institutionalism to analyze how processes of isomorphism contributed to this change. Through interviews with 10 authors and 7 editors, we show how specific mechanisms associated with isomorphism—coercion, mimesis, and normative pressures—explain this major shift. Contrary to prevailing literature, we find that structural innovations moved from publishing’s periphery to its core in a process we call reverse isomorphism. We contribute to discussions of representation in media by showing how social, organizational, and institutional processes facilitate or suppress underrepresented voices. At the same time, we caution that new structures may create new types of marginalization.
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This study demonstrates how e-book publishing prompted what we call reverse isomorphism, where economic, technological, and normative pressures led large publishers to adopt structures and practices pioneered by tiny digital publishers, facilitating the rise of LGBTQ romance
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Our interviews revealed that the rise of LGBTQ+ romance publishing at major publishers was inextricably tied to the rise of e-books and digital self-publishing. Specifically, major publishers underwent isomorphic processes that transformed their internal production practices and structures, making them more similar to indie and small presses. These innovations often spread through network brokers—specifically, authors and editors who had worked with small digital publishers or indie publishing—who imported practices and expectations from the indie world to the big publishing world
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At the same time that e-books were transforming publishing economics, editors across the field were feeling intense social pressure and personal and professional obligations to diversify romance. Their new digital-first imprints gave them a way to reduce the risk of doing so.
Social norms regarding sexual orientation changed rapidly in the United States in the early 2000s. In 2002, only 40% of Americans supported gay marriage; by 2022, 71% did (Gallop, 2022). Meanwhile, social media campaigns like #WeNeedDiverseBooks pressured children’s book publishers to bring out stories with a much wider array of characters. A series of diversity-related failures at RWA resulted in years of pressure to publish more authors of color, culminating in a spectacular public meltdown of the world’s largest writing association in 2020. This pressure from readers and authors stemmed largely from the rise of Twitter and other platforms amplifying calls for social change. [...] In addition to the #WeNeedDiverseBooks, romance fans became increasingly active in promoting same-sex romance through a TikTok subgenre known as BookTok.
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it is important to note that Big Five publishers did not treat authors of LGBTQ+ romance on the same footing as many other romance authors. Because LGBTQ+ romance arose first in digital-only imprints, these authors typically received no advance and did not get the same level of publicity that Big Five publishers put behind print books. One interviewee even referred to their digital-first imprint as “the gay ghetto.”
A more cynical view of the rise of queer romance, then, might suggest that publishers met public calls for greater diversity by finding a cheaper, more limited way to allow expression of these voices. However, the fact that publishers have recently started putting queer romance in trade paperback, a higher quality, more expensive format, supports a more optimistic perspective.
Here's the abstract:
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It's been pointed out to me that there's a sentence in the article which states: "In the mid-1990s, RWA issued a survey asking members whether the romance genre should be defined as love stories between a man and a woman (Maltese, 2016)." However, the blog post by Racheline Maltese to which it refers begins by stating that "Today Romance Writers of America issued a long overdue and welcome apology for a poll in 2005" not in the "mid-1990s." The RWA apology post has been archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20161221082122/https://www.rwa.org/p/bl/et/blogid=20&blogaid=1483