White-bread Romance?

[dragonimp]

Are all romance novels White, or is it just my library? Are the romances featuring non-white characters hiding behind the anonymous covers? Even the ones with titles like "The Sicilian's Mistress" or "The Spanish Billionaire's Bride" feature awfully pale-skinned mediterraneans. Out of all the romances I've seen come across the desk, I've seen one - exactly one - that had a non-white character on the cover. It made me do a double-take, which is sad. I shouldn't be startled to see a dark-skinned Cover Hunk. Do only Caucasians get to have romance or something? If this is some sort of directed marketing attempt, it's failed, because a lot of non-white women read romances.

Anyway, off to taxes, and then to schoolwork. It's getting down to the wire, so I'm not going to be around much online. I'm still reading, but if it would take more than minimal brain function to comment, I'm probably not going to ^^;;. See everyone after the 20th.

Comments

[shawk.livejournal.com]

Not to mention that I don't think that all white women only find white men attractive.

Good luck!

[dragonimp.livejournal.com]

I know, right? And people check out stacks of these at a time, it must get rather monotonous to have white-white-white-white oh look, another white guy!

[rainjoyous.livejournal.com]

There's actually a pretty big market for non-white romances but they're less Mills & Boon, they tend to do their own thing. Indian chicklit is *huge* in India and we stock a fair bit. Black romances tend to be more - 'street'? Much more urban and you know, hard-hitting and stuff, but all romance novels are so straight and often so badly written that I rarely crack the covers anyway ^^;

(Mills & Boon is a massive, massive capitalist empire standing proudly against good literature, and may indeed have non-white branches if it thinks it can make money out of it; I don't know, we don't stock them ;)

Maybe it's just your library, do you live in a really white area? Back home I never saw non-white romances either but, you know, London is London.

[dragonimp.livejournal.com]

At least they're out there; though it would be nice if they were a little less .. compartmentalized, I guess? But that's the publishing world in general, unfortunately. (I wonder if we could get the Indian chicklit here? They'd probably circulate really well, the Indian movies and magazines do.)

Maybe it's just your library, do you live in a really white area?
What actually made me notice was the number of Hispanic and Indian women I see checking them out. I think Whites are still in the majority here, but it's not by much. But I wouldn't be surprised if the branch managers or whoever orders the romances just kinda haven't noticed.

all romance novels are so straight and often so badly written that I rarely crack the covers anyway ^^;
Heh, yeah, no kidding. I know there are some excellent romance novels out there, but weeding through all the dross just isn't worth it XD. (Plus they all feature stunningly attractive people - I know they're fantasies, but come on! Can't average people have romance?)