If it has supers but is mostly romance, its romance with supers.
If it has urban fantasy but mostly romance, its romance with supernatural powers.
Again, don't throw your book into alternate tags and with a mis-leading cover. Just in an attempt to bypass the bloated giant that is ROMANCE. Its why YA is in the triangle hell. Its why I wont touch 80% of "Urban Fantasy" because most of it is NEW STYLE DOG PILE Anita Blake waiting to KO my palate with absolute shit storytelling.
I think that's why I also shy away from certain things unless like minded readers say, "Hey, this thing isnt romance in cloaked form, give it a looksee. If I want a bodice ripper, ill be able to find one easy enough. But actual fantastical fiction? Its getting overrun. There's so much out there esp with PARANORMAL romance that its like Anita Blake's retarded cousin on stage.
At least one of my favorite Romance Sci Fi series actually lists its books where it should go and the cover isn't misleading at all, I know exactly what I will get: Here's the series!
Even the reviews point blank will tell you. Mad respect, she sold her series well in a bloated category. That's what you will face with ROMANCE PRIMARY. Its just a fact. Stop throwing your IKEA specials into my space opera or hard sci fi or military sci fi because you decided to sprinkle 20% of your setting into that hole.
Maybe Amazon should make more Romance tags. Because as a reader, I want to be able to pin point what I really want to read easier. I want to be able to bypass the god awful amounts of romance to find specific types of fantasy or sci fi. I wish I had a way to shift all those books out of the way for a session or two so I can find what I want buried under mountains of trash.
I do mean trash in a pretty literal sense. Most IKEA romance books are exactly that to me. They are all about the physical and hardly build up the actual relationship. I am burnt out on that shit. Mightly. Aren't couples, in a healthy relationship, supposed to be each other's willow of a sorts. More then just the physical, they are each other's closest friend. Sticking through thick and thin. Good and bad times. Lots of romance just lives on the overall drama llama and hardly developed these characters. What makes them a good fit besides boning each other into the sun?
I dont mind sensual or even some sexual scenes. But very few can pull it off. With any kind of tact.
I wont personally write stuff like that in my own series. IE its going to be mostly fade to black. If I had to rate what I will have in there romance wise, It would be PG-13. Maybe some on screen kisses and the like but do I really want to explore what they do in the bed room? Not really. Ill leave that up to imagination.
But mad props to people who can put it in and make it remain sensual and bring that couples love for one another to the forefront without it becoming gaudy.
IF I was amazon Id add in these tags:
- More Romance Sci Fi tags (space opera, sci fantasy, sci paranormal, ect)
- Romance Fantasy
- Romance Harem
- Romance Reverse Harem
- Paranormal Romance with another 10 sub categories (IE Cat People, Wolf People, ect. Theres a metric fuck ton of shifter BS.)
- Romance Alpha Whatever
- Romance Steampunk
- Romance Victorian
- Romance Gay
- Romance Lesbian
- Romance Parody
- Romance Military Sci Fi
Heck, some of these travesties put their books in stuff like American Studies, Historical Fantasy X, African Fiction Whatever because the field is so over saturated. Its a feat when a new writer can hope to breach 100 copies sold.
I think even the Ebook market will have its reset shortly. There's just so much one and done stuff on there that its bound to happen.
I'm gonna add more to the https://superhero-fiction.com/ page to help. Its interesting that smaller outlets have more varied slots to make sure you find what you are looking for.
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