Jan 26, 2010
More on co-authors
As a followup to the Patterson post, here’s a post at the Christian Science Monitor about reader reactions to co-authoring. I just left a comment about the “genre books are so formulaic” bit because I’m apparently unable to let that slide, but it’s an interesting post, especially given the popularity of multi-author pseudonymous series for young readers.
I think most of us agree it’s not an ideal to have a co-author and not acknowledge it, but it’s understandable in some situations. You’re right about genre fiction. A lot of terrific books come out of genres, and speculative elements have deep roots in Western literature(Greek drama, 19th century American literary romanticism, etc.). Still, I was looking at the site of a respected independent publisher that takes unsolicited submissions in romance, and they scored submissions against genre conventions. Another small publisher concerned with romance required happy endings for a book to be published.
Yes, when I was teaching Women’s Popular Genres in the fall, I showed my students Harlequin’s page with descriptions of the conventions for each of their romance categories. I find romance publishing so interesting!