The MFRW Book Place discussion

My two paranormal werewolf books have multiple romances in them. The first book has one hetero couple, and one gay male couple. But the publisher insisted that it had to have the LBGTQ classification added, since some readers might not be happy to find a sex scene between two men in their romance novel.

Personally I feel like that's lying. The main romance is between the heroine and the hero--it's her best friend who is the gay man who falls in love with another gay man. So their romance only gets a couple of mentions. Are readers going to feel misled if they buy it because it's labeled as LBGTQ, and find it only has a short vignette or two that are gay?

IMO, your publisher is off the mark. Is there on-page sex between the MM couple? Is the book already a steamy tale? It seems to me that the type of readers who'd object to reading a sex scene between two men would also object to reading a sex scene, period.

See, I agree with you, Rhonda. I feel that reading about sex is reading about sex--if you enjoy it, it doesn't really matter WHO the participants are. And yes, there is one scene in each of the two books, where the two men have sex. But lots of other pages where the hetero couples have sex. I don't do closed door--I leave the door open and invite the reader in. I just don't want to disappoint readers who expect more LGBTQ action, when there is really only the one scene in each book.

Publishers have this categorization fetish... as well as a morbid fear of offending readers. That's one reason why I've switched to self-publishing, because my books don't fit neatly into categories.

I do think some readers object to MM (and even more to FF) in primarily hetero romances. So I try to give some clues about what they're going to encounter. However, I certainly wouldn't label When a Werewolf... as LGBTQ. That's going to upset readers who are looking for a completely gay romance.

Oh, and I had a reviewer once pan my MM paranormal NECESSARY MADNESS because it had one half page scene where the villain has phone sex with his girlfriend/minion!

Lord, preserve us from purists!