Interracial Romance: Fad or the Future

One might wonder why I would bother to ask such a question given the proliferation of interracial/multicultural romances with the last 10 years. If you are wondering if this is a fad or a harbinger of things to come, let me begin with this hypothesis: Mainstream literary agents and some publishers have two perspectives.

One, they consider this a fad; a recent boom coming from minority writers who dwell within our urban landscapes. They see the scores of self-published fiction on Amazon and elsewhere, and since this literary trend seemed to "come out of nowhere", it may fade as quickly it rose.

Two, they see it as the future. Yet because interracial (or "IR" as it is known in the trade), is a sub-genre within a sub-genre, my hypothesis is that it is still far too esoteric to be profitable. After all, the great amount of IR romance involves black women and white men; and because we always read about a heroine with whom we can relate, why would a white female want to read a romance wherein the heroine does not reflect her? Fair enough.

And we know that the largest demographic of romance readers are white females from the southern half of the United States, so it stands to reason that a literary agent who looks to the marketability of a good story first is going to decline representing a project that they perceive has limited sales potential. After all, this is business.

Yet I would like to add in a third variable which in no way impugns those in the business of representing authors for a living.

Might it not be that the many rejections that go out from long-established mainstream literary agent houses are because of a failure to fully perceive the rapidly changing racial, cultural, and "inter-relational" world around them? That from the competitive realms of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and other literary strongholds there lacks a visionary outlook which says, "We should represent more of this kind of literature"?

In part, I say, yes. Interracial romances are not a fad, and are not only here to stay, but they are going to grow and flourish. It is the future of romance much in the same way music like rap and hip-hop (once an anomaly of the urban fringe) have now gone mainstream.

I look to Kensington and Harlequin Publishing houses whose IR imprints do sell, and sell well enough for these giants to see profits generated from stories that feature non-white protagonists. Sadly, the reality is that by virtue of numbers in the population's demographic, white men/white women will continue to dominate mainstream romance submissions, acceptance by agents, and will end up on book shelves from publishers from now until romance writers go extinct.

But as the hearts and minds of people progress toward greater understanding and acceptance (notice, I did not say tolerance), of love across color lines, I do hope more agents realize they stand to profit by taking a chance on an ever-escalating trend.

Or perhaps I should reassure them that there are more than enough fans of IR romance; readers like me who would make it worth their while.