photo: All rights reserved by Enrique Cruz Men

Writers take note: edgy, gay romances with steamy sex are IN. But don’t take it from me. Here’s a fascinating interview with CEO Lori James of All Romance Ebooks where she talks with Katie Dunneback of the Library Journal about the state of the romance ebook industry.

It will come as no surprise that gay romance ebooks were one of the top three subgenres for 2011 [the others being erotic and speculative (which includes paranormal, vampire/werewolves, shape shifter, sci-fi/fantasy — I know, a shock)].

The interview is great for getting some behind-the-scenes info on how the ebook business is actually run – great information for writers intending to self-publish ebooks in any genre. Lori also helpfully provides a nice amount of demographic data on who is buying what, along with some key insights into what a romance fan wants when she (he?) buys a book.

It’s no secret that a lot of gay romance ebooks are written by women and purchased and read by women. I’ve always found this pretty curious, but I guess romance is romance, and perhaps it’s like the phenomenon of straight guys who get turned on by lesbian erotica in film.

Finally, of interest are the stats on what All Romance Ebooks sells broken down in to DRM titles and non-DRM titles: Last year, fully 96 percent of their sales were for their non-DRM titles, which only make up 9 percent of their inventory. When asked why she thought her customers wanted the non-DRM content, the answer was that they didn’t want restrictions on what they were buying, and often read the books on multiple platforms – a PC at night, a mobile device at work perhaps – not that they were going to resell the content elsewhere!

Share-ability is one thing, but writers/content creators (as well as publishers) do need to be paid for their work. I guess piracy concerns will always be with us in some form or another.

Your thoughts? If you’re a writer, would you self-publish a non-DRM title? If so why? If not, why not?

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