Would it surprise you to hear that many gay men state that they actually read very little so called "gay books"? How could this possibly be true? The number of sold gay romance novels has risen exponentially over the last years. The genre has seen an increase in authors and readership like no other.
Gay literature groups bemoan the lack of actual book reading in comparison to previous generations. While the sales of Kindle, ipad and digital book readers boom, it is gay men who appear to read less books than the average book fans. Evidently, more and more gay book stores close.
Whilst this is a distrurbing trend the question arises if this development results form the fact that mainstream bookstores, such as Waterman or Barnes & Nobles, have given more and more space to queer literature.
We surely need to take into account that a lot of free reading material can be found online and there is room to assume that instead of going to a book store more and more online reading takes place.
If it isn´t gay men reading gay fiction... than who does? Women do.
Women read gay fiction.
To some this might come as a surprise, yet the sales numbers on Amazon clearly state this as a fact. As do those on established online publishing platforms. What does this latest development tell us about the shift in reader groups? And why is it that women have started to express an interest in the genre? Is it an interest that runs through the female population in general or do we need to look at a specific group among women? A great challenge for anthropologists to take on and to dive into.
Female readers for Gay Fiction might still take some time to get used to and find a braod recognition in all western society, numbers in sales though speak for themselves and we better start looking forward towhat literary pleasure gay romance novels have to offer.
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