How Hot Do We Want It?

At Intrigue Publishing we focus on specific genres of fiction. In our short business life we’ve published award-winning crime novels and young adult fiction, but our other two genres are moving more slowly. So right now our minds are on launching our sensual romance line. We are eager for submissions, but what we want to publish is very specific. Yes we want it to be steamy… but how hot is too hot?

Sensual romance is not erotica. We’re looking for hot, not burning. If you read Kensington's Brava line you’re enjoying books that are a bit too explicit for our intended audience. But also, hot is not “warm.” In a sensual romance you can’t leave EVERYTHING to the reader's imagination. We love Nora Roberts and Rebecca York, but we want to publish stories that are a little more explicit.

So how would we define sensuous romance? The novels we want may contain very explicit sensuality, and there is an expanded focus throughout the book on sexual feelings and desires. There will be at least two or three love scenes. The characters often think about their sexual feelings and desires, and making love is graphically depicted. HOWEVER, both the emotions of the hero and heroine and their physical feelings are important during love scenes.

We want our line to compete with, and share readers with, the Harlequin Temptations and Blaze lines. If you want to see exactly the kind of novel we’re most interested in, sample the novels written by J.D. Robb, Leanne Banks, Stephanie Laurens, Gaelen Foley, Karen Marie Moning, Linda Howard, Lisa Kleypas, Susan Andersen and Sherrilyn Kenyon.   

Of course, in one way good sensual romance is like pornography – it’s hard to define but we know it when we see it. And we WANT to see it, so send us your novel submission soon. Of course, start by reading our submission guidelines at http://intriguepublishing.com/?page_id=121 so you know it’s what we want in the form we want. Then send us something that will intrigue us and our readers.  

Name That Genre

In conversations at the Philadelphia Writers Conference this weekend I learned of the common belief that “genre” only exist so booksellers will know where to shelve books.  However, I think that genre labels serve a purpose for readers, helping them to select their next book based on their own tastes.

When we established Intrigue Publishing we decided to narrow our focus more than most small presses.  We would publish only genre fiction, and only four specific genres at that.  However, over the last two years we have found it challenging to define the books we want to publish.  It’s even more challenging when you consider all the sub-genre books can fall into.

For example, one of our four genres is crime fiction.  That encompasses thrillers and mysteries.  But thrillers can be international, or political. They can be military or spy thrillers, action/adventure books, caper stories, or novels of suspense that can sometimes border on horror.  Similarly, mysteries can be noir, hard boiled, police procedurals, or cozy (excuse me, I mean traditional mysteries.)   We love them all.

We also publish Young Adult (YA) fiction.  I believe YA to be an audience rather than a genre, and those young readers enjoy EVERY kind of fiction.  We’ve published Y-As that could be classified as science fiction, fantasy or espionage thrillers, but a coming-of-age story would fit us too.

We’ve been looking for sensual romance books, but keep getting erotica.  Not the same thing, people.  Keep it romantic.  A lot of paranormal writers like Sherrilyn Kenyon hit the right spot.  So do Jude Devereaux and Amanda Quick.

And then there’s urban drama.  We’ve learned that when most people see “urban” they think “African American” which was not our intent.  No "street lit" please.  And contemporary drama tends to bring in chick-lit and we are NOT looking for Nicholas Sparks.  Our first example is 

B. Swangin Webster's upcoming "Let Me Just Say This."  

Maybe we need a new label for the books we want to publish.   So, help us out - not for bookstore shelving, but to help authors know what to submit to us. How shall we label the stories we’re looking for? We want fiction with strong characters facing real life challenges - things that happen every day in American cities. These are stories of personal struggle and triumph. Help us define this genre, because we know a lot of women who want to read these books.