Apparently, I am a moron. I never knew (probably because I’m too stupid to figure it out) so I’m just so grateful that Barbara Bickmore could point it out for me. She felt the need to break out the hand puppets over on the Burning Questions on BookPage. Here’s what she had to say:
No American publishers seem interested anymore. I’m told that I write books that are too long, are about women and their problems and achievements and don’t have enough violence and action in them to interest Americans. I guess my two books before that didn’t sell terribly well. However, I do make a very nice living from Europe, and it does make me a little sad that America isn’t interested anymore. I don’t write romances, where there is nothing more than the man and woman getting together and then being torn apart and the rest of the book is about their getting back together. My books are too complex for romance readers.
Right. So, as they said over on Smart Bitches, all romance readers must then be “stupid, mouth-breathing morons.” Yes…yes…it all begins to make sense now… It takes my pea brain a while to process such a profoundly life-changing statement, you understand. Because, as an ignorant romance reader, I can’t possibly grasp anything more complex than picking my nose and flicking the boogers. I mean, it’s not like I graduated summa cum laude or finished graduate school in under 18 months. Nope, not me. I’m a drooling, syncophantic reader of that literature-for-simpletons called romance. It’s just stupendous that I can even spell a word with more than four letters!
So, let’s consider why no publisher wanted to touch her oh-so-justifiably-superior “literature.” Since I am an utter fool, I think I’ll quote from the Washington Post on this matter:
Romance publishing is a big business. In 2004, the latest year for which the RWA has compiled figures, romance fiction generated $1.2 billion worth of sales, based on data supplied by Ipsos Book Trends. Some 2,285 romance titles were released that year, accounting for 54.9 percent of mass-market paperback sales and 39.3 percent of all fiction sold in this country.
Ha! Who’s laughing all the way to the bank now, bitch? Won’t be buying any of her Euro-trash. My brain capacity is just too teensy to manage even a seminal understanding of the “real” literature she so eloquently pens. *snort*
In conclusion, I say: Way to go, Barbara Bickmore! Alienate the largest buying block of the American market. Can’t imagine why publishers wouldn’t be interested. But, then, we’ve already established my mental inferiority. Whew. Glad she’s the one who has to ponder that one out. I just couldn’t put two and two together, myself.
