I’ve been following this thing since late February, when someone I know on Twitter made ominous subtweets about a catfishing scandal (yet again) in the world of male/male romance publishing.
This link from The Salt Miners gives a better overview and details.
Riptide, one of the most outwardly prestigious publishers in the genre, got caught with its racism showing (openly saying they won’t put POC on cover art, because that doesn’t sell). *
A major star in Riptide’s ranks was revealed to be substantially different than what ‘he’ claimed, and (worse) accused of gaslighting and harassing other authors. A senior editor was revealed to have deeply unprofessional interactions with some authors. Other authors have been accused of being ‘in the know’ and covering for or joining in the abuse.
I don’t know any of the people directly involved. I have had personal doubts about Riptide for some time, mainly based on what I considered to be bi-erasure in their writing guidelines. But since I don’t write for Riptide’s largely contemporary market, it was unlikely I’d ever query them. I’m a fantasy and space opera gal.
For years I’ve suspected that many literary agents and publishers (in both romance and SFF) only jumped on the ‘diversity’ bandwagon to capitalize from it, after they could no longer completely ignore it.
I beg my fellow readers and authors *not* to boycott Riptide. That would only hurt some damn fine and innocent writers. Give the publisher a chance to clean its house.
Be selective as a reader. Buy good books, especially good books written by and about people of color. Stop giving bad books a pass because they’re in your current obsession/trope/fandom. When you read great books by POC authors, review them! Reviews sell books. We all want that, right?
The male/male portion of Romancelandia is already an uneasy alliance between gay & lesbian literary-fic writers, and authors (often women) writing in the erotica genres derived from fanfiction. Each group has its own clubs and causes. There’s scrabbling for territory, fierce infighting, virtue signalling galore, fraud, theft, and a terror of the alt-right and conservative world intruding into ‘our playground’. On its best days, m/m romance is a heady combo of the Wild West and the stock market on a roll. On its worst…well, we get scandals like Santino Hassell.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Let’s do better by each other, as writers and readers.
* I’ve seen this firsthand with other publishers. I had to fight Loose Id a bit in 2012 to get a POC character on the cover of my debut novel. Did it soften sales? I have no idea. I know that for its new release last year with NineStar Press, we focused on only one character (not the POC guy). I can also say I have every confidence NineStar can effectively showcase the POC in my next novels, because the publisher’s lineup already features great POC covers.
