Love
Between the Covers
A
Documentary Film
Written,
Produced & Directed by: Laurie Kahn
Love
stories are universal. Love stories are powerful. And so are the
women who write them.
Love
Between the Covers
is the fascinating story of the vast, funny, and savvy female
community that has built a powerhouse industry sharing love stories.
Romance fiction is sold in 34 languages on six continents, and the
genre grosses more than a billion dollars a year -- outselling
mystery, sci-fi, and fantasy combined. Yet the millions of voracious
women (and sometimes men) who read, write, and love romance novels
have remained oddly invisible. Until now.
For
three years, we follow the lives of five very diverse published
romance authors and one unpublished newbie as they build their
businesses, find and lose loved ones, cope with a tsunami of change
in publishing, and earn a living doing what they love—while
empowering others to do the same. Romance authors have built a fandom
unlike all others, a global sisterhood where authors know their
readers personally and help them become writers themselves. During
the three years we’ve been shooting Love
Between the Covers,
we have witnessed the biggest power shift that has taken place in the
publishing industry over the last 200 years. And it’s the romance
authors who are on the front lines, pioneering new ways to survive
and build communities in this rapidly changing environment.
Link to Follow Blast: HERE
10
Surprising Facts about Romance Novels by Laurie Kahn
Four
years ago, when I began making my documentary film Love
Between the Covers,
I stepped into a community I knew nothing about: the global network
of women who write, read, and love romance novels. What I found
surprised me. Here are ten things I learned:
1. Romance
fiction is a billion-dollar industry
Romance
novel sales total more than a billion dollars a year. They sell as
much as sci-fi, mystery, and fantasy combined.
2. The
romance readership is HUGE and global
More
than 70 million people in the USA alone read at least one romance
novel per year, and most of them read many more. The work of popular
American romance writer Nora Roberts is translated into 33 languages
and distributed on 6 continents.
3. There is
a surprisingly wide range of romance novels
Like
romance blogger Sarah
Wendell says,
"Whatever your cup of tea is, someone's pouring it."
Romance novels
are often equated with "bodice-rippers," but the steamy
historicals with Fabio on the cover were published back in the 1970s
and 1980s. Since that time, the spectrum of romance novels
has exploded.
On one end of that spectrum, there are chaste evangelical romances.
On the other end, there are BDSM romances (yes, likethat one).
In between,
you'll find paranormal romance with vampires and shapeshifters,
time-travel romance, historical romance, contemporary romance, and
romantic suspense. There are growing romance subgenres for LGBT love
stories, a large community of writers who specialize in
African-American romance, and there's even a popular Amish romance
subgenre.
4. Everybody's writing
romance
Women of
every description (and a small number of men) are the engine of this
industry.
Contrary to
expectations, romance authors come from every economic class, every
racial group, every sexual preference, and every level of education.
When I asked
the pioneering African-American romance author Beverly
Jenkinsabout
her peers, she told me, "Women from all walks of life do this.
We're not sitting in the proverbial trailer park in ratty nightgowns,
eating jelly beans and watching soap operas. There are some pretty
powerful women doing this! Geneticists, astrophysicists, lawyers,
doctors..." The list goes on.
Len Barot (pen
name Radclyffe),
one of the main characters in Love
Between the Covers,
began writing lesbian romances during her surgical residency. Mary
Bly (pen name Eloisa
James),
another main character in the film, is a Shakespeare scholar by day
and an author of historical romances by night.
I interviewed
PhDs, lawyers, and insurance executives. I also interviewed romance
authors who worked in factories. There's an open door for anyone who
wants to give it a try. Nora
Roberts,
the rock star of the romance industry, never went to college.
5. Women in
the romance community are more likely than the general population to
be currently married or living with a partner.
We've
all seen depictions of the lonely, lovesick romance writer, who pens
titillating novels while eating bonbons and sobbing over her
keyboard.
Don't believe
the stereotype. While romance does offer women a place to escape
daily life and live out their fantasies, this community of readers
and writers are statistically more likely than most to be in happy
relationships.
6. Romance
authors become personal friends with their readers, and readers find
one another.
In the
romance community friendships that begin online - based on a shared
love of books-- often become real and enduring friendships.
Beverly
Jenkins and her readers are in constant contact at Beverly's Facebook
page, talking about books, football, music, and the ups and downs of
their everyday lives. Every other year, Beverly takes a trip with her
readers to places where her novels are set.
Radclyffe
invites beginning authors to her farm in upstate New York, where she
leads workshops on romance writing, and several of Eloisa James's
loyal readers told us they found their closest friends, with whom
they communicate every day, through Eloisa's blog.
7. Romance
writers get tremendous support from one another
Why
are these women so happy to pull a less experienced writer up the
ranks? I asked many authors this question, and almost all of them
told me stories of their early romance mentors--and their desire to
pay it forward.
At a Romance
Writers of America (RWA)
national conference, unpublished writers are always welcome
(something that does not happen at other writer conferences), and
there are dozens of workshops taught by established writers about
everything from plot structure and writing knife-fights, to social
networking and negotiating contracts. You will see bestselling
novelists sitting down for coffee with unpublished newbies,
critiquing their work and giving them business advice.
8. Romance
authors are on the cutting edge, pioneering new
technologies
Romance
writers and readers were the first to enthusiastically adopt e-books,
a service which works well for anyone who buys hundreds of books, and
romance writers have always been mavericks of social media, using it
effectively to build fan communities.
Romance has
been at the forefront of the biggest change to take place in
publishing in the last 200 years: self publishing. Together, romance
authors have figured out how to succeed in self-publishing. Instead
of being secretive, these one-person indie publishing houses share
their knowhow and numbers (not a common practice in publishing).
10. Romance
writing isn't an easy gig
You
might think writing romance novels is more of a breezy pastime than a
professional venture, but the deadlines that romance novelists face
are incredibly rigorous. Susan
Donovan described
the feeling of being on-deadline saying, "There's always a flame
behind your ass." Some women publish three or four books a year.
On top of this, most novelists handle their own promotion, and
self-published authors also handle their novels' distribution. When
you're a romance novelist, you are a one-woman business.
I had a blast
exploring the romance community over the last four years. In
creatingLove
Between the Covers,
I discovered one of the few places where women are always center
stage, where female characters always win, where justice prevails in
every book, and where the broad spectrum of desires of women from all
backgrounds are not feared, but explored unapologetically.
Director/Producer
LAURIE KAHN’s films have won major awards, been shown on PBS
primetime, broadcast around the world, and used widely in university
classrooms and community groups. Her first film, A Midwife’s Tale,
was based on the 18th century diary of midwife Martha Ballard and
Laurel Ulrich’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book A Midwife’s Tale. It
won film festival awards and a national Emmy for Outstanding
Non-Fiction. Her film TUPPERWARE! was broadcast in more than 20
countries, won the George Foster Peabody Award and was nominated for
a national Best Nonfiction Director Emmy. Kahn previously worked on
Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, The American
Experience, FRONTLINE’S Crisis in Central America, All Things
Considered, and Time Out. She’s a resident scholar at Brandeis’s
Women’s Studies Research Center.
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