In Love in the Time of Self-Publishing, Christine Larson shines a light on romance writers’ extraordinary success in the realm of electronic self-publishing and the genre’s continued innovation. A professor of journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder, Larson departs from the textual analysis and cultural criticism that typically characterizes popular romance studies and instead approaches the romance genre through the lens of media economics. The resulting analysis is a seamless synthesis of ethnography, economic critique, and social history, supported by Larson’s lucid and conversational prose. 

Larson asks two central and seemingly contradictory questions of her subjects: “Why did romance writers, arguably the most mocked, maligned, and mistreated group of authors in history, become the most successful and innovative writers in the e-book revolution? Second, why did a key pillar of Romancelandia—Romance Writers of America [RWA]—collapse at the very height of that digital success?” (p. 11). She contends that romance ebooks’ staggering commercial success is due to the pervasive and inclusive peer-to-peer advice network long established among romance novelists, notable also for its overwhelmingly female participants. In Part I: Why Romancelandia Matters, Larson establishes her subject and outlines her argument, its scope, and its theoretical framework and methods. In Part II: Romancelandia Rising, she gives the history of the romance genre and RWA as an organization, details the various sources of conflict in this community throughout the years, and describes the mutually beneficial relationships romance writers have formed with their readers. At the same time, this section does not shy away from the ways in which RWA has routinely misstepped over the treatment of marginalized authors, reaching a point of crisis in late 2019. Part III: Romancelandia in the Digital Age details how the publishing industry has changed in the twenty-first century, as well as  how the romance genre has addressed these new challenges and nurtured authors who have thrived under the auspices of digital self-publishing. However, Larson shows that the rise of social media has also caused long-simmering tensions in the genre to reach a boiling point, leading many to part ways with RWA and creating an uncertain future for organizing and mutual aid between romance writers. In her final chapter, Larson offers her thoughts on a few possible ways forward for the romance community, including ways that other social and professional networks might stand in for the services previously provided to authors by RWA.

At the heart of Larson’s study is her analysis of the community created around the romance genre. Known to participants as “Romancelandia,” this community includes writers, readers, and critics, as well as editors, agents, and publishers. Central to Larson’s argument is the concept of Romancelandia as an “open-elite” network, or one that encourages ties between well-established members of a community and newcomers. This open-elite network functions under an overarching ethics of care, offering emotional and professional support to all its members. Larson gathered her research data through extensive interviews, participant observation studies, archival research, quantitative and qualitative surveys, and a social network analysis of romance writer advice networks. She posits that these unusually inclusive advice networks were a key factor in romance authors’ early adoption of ebook formats and self-publishing, as well as in their subsequent success in these markets. 

Of particular interest for book historians may be Larson’s proposed update of Robert Darnton’s well-known “communication circuit,” a model of book history that considers all of its component actors and social and economic influences. Larson shares Darnton’s holistic approach: though her main focus is on authors and their advice networks, she also factors in all relevant stakeholders within Romancelandia. Readers may quibble with her use of Darnton’s model to illustrate the production and distribution of ebooks; yet her substitution of one large node labeled “Amazon” for the majority of the nodes on Darnton’s original diagram is startling and thought-provoking, to say the least. Another major change is the updated circuit’s ability to circumvent what Darnton labels “economic and social conjecture,” or the publishing industry’s assumptions about what stories will sell or be of interest to readers. This type of speculation often centers privileged identities as normative and pigeonholes books featuring marginalized protagonists into a single story of triumph over adversity, believing that a broad readership would not be interested in these same protagonists leading mundane lives or, for example, doing something as simple as falling in love. Digital self-publishing allows authors to find wider audiences and tell varied stories about diverse protagonists. 

This is a heartening change, especially since Larson makes clear that the pioneering work of Black women, including famed romance editor Vivian Stephens, has been crucial to empowering authors within the genre and setting the reciprocal tone of its community. It is therefore all the more tragic that the fragmenting of the romance community in 2019 and beyond was precipitated by RWA’s refusal to confront racial bias within its organization. Early on, RWA’s awareness of its own stigmatized status made it prone to suppressing conflict within the organization. This same tendency led to the RWA’s 2019 censure of writer Courtney Milan, who had recently called out another author for racism on Twitter. The subsequent uproar led to a splintering of the organization that triggered its decline. Considering that the first Black recipients of the genre’s highest writing prize, the RITA, had been only awarded earlier that year, many felt the organization’s resistance to diversity and inclusion was intractable.

Larson’s book presents not only an account of a possible pathway between traditional and self-publishing for authors in all literary genres, but it also provides a general model for how solidarity, support, and information sharing can benefit an entire industry. At the same time, it serves as a cautionary tale for organizations to check their own biases and blind spots, especially as they relate to marginalized groups. As gig work proliferates, the lessons that can be gleaned from Larson’s book are invaluable. We all can benefit from being more supportive of our peers, sharing knowledge and expertise, and remembering that cutthroat competition is not the most sustainable way to a brighter future. This book will be not only of interest to book historians but also to a broader audience interested in models of worker solidarity.

Caitlin Lenox, University of Minnesota