My friends. My loves. My dudes.
If you want f/f books, you gotta buy books from creators who want to write f/f. That’s it. That’s literally the ticket. The more Queer books you buy from Queer authors who are doing the work — the more content there will be. The end.
Last night I saw this Tweet go by on my timeline. I let it go by and then scrolled back to find it because it was bothering me. And then I wrote a thread about why.
I have screen-capped the Tweet for anonymity because, as I said in the original thread, the person is making a valid point about market-driven content and the need to support creators of the work we want to see out there in the world with our dollars. I also don’t want to pile on this person I have no prior relationship with. But this is a sentiment that circulates with moderate frequency in discussions about whither the f/f romance and I have some feels about shaming and blaming readers for the fact that they aren’t finding the f/f stories they want to read.
First, this argument doesn’t engage with the fact that f/f fiction is structurally more expensive than other kinds of queer romance. I can buy three m/m stories at $2.99 a pop from authors I trust or one $9.99 f/f book from an author I have never read before. Should I be willing to pay more for f/f to support emerging f/f writers? Maybe. But what about readers who only have the $2.99? Too bad for them? Readers don’t have unlimited budgets. We make choices. Cost is a real barrier to access.*
Second, this argument flattens f/f into a single type of story you either want or don’t. Most readers have more specific tastes. I like historicals and paranormals that grapple meaningfully with gender, class, race, include meaningful chosen family networks, and have narratively significant sex. So while I want f/f, I want a pretty specific type of story — a similar type of story to the m/m and f/m narratives I gravitate toward. My other preferences as a reader don’t just swirl down the drain the minute I start sorting by the f/f category tag. If authors writing f/f are not writing in the romance flavors I enjoy, I might feel strongly about the political value of supporting f/f writers in the abstract but as a reader I have low incentive to purchase. Do I pay $4.99 for an m/m or f/m histrom paranormal my trusted social-promotional networks are buzzing about … or $9.99 for a contemporary f/f, the blurb of which makes me feel meh?
And third, those social-promotional networks really matter! Right now, the social-promotional network for f/f seems to be almost entirely separate circle on the Venn diagram from the social-promotional circle of m/m and f/m. (Much like the fandom crossover between original media that inspire f/f pairings and original media that inspire m/m pairings seems to meet only rarely.) In addition to person-to-person recommendations, the algorithimic “readers also bought…” recs in Kindle and cross-promotions at the end of m/m works are rarely (never?!) f/f.** I would totally pay $2.99 to try a new-to-me f/f author with my romance specs if they’re recommended to me by a person whose taste I find reliable vis a vis my own. This ALMOST NEVER HAPPENS with f/f. I am a queer woman romance reader, who follows a lot of queer women readers, and I almost never see this type of squeeful signal boosting of good histrom or paranormal f/f that effectively handsells the author to me (which is how I find most of my m/m and f/m authors). So the books aren’t making it in front of eyeballs is my point. The ecosystem is broken.
In sum: “Pay authors to write f/f!” is not the simple feminist fix it seems. I mean, I would be 1000% happy to be proved wrong and to wake up tomorrow morning to my mentions full of histrom, paranormal, non-transphobic, diverse, sexually explicit f/f romances for $5 or less. (Narrator: This didn’t happen.) But when I ask for recs I mostly get crickets and sympathy.
I anonymized the original Tweet above because I don’t want to attack the person who is making an important point about labor and compensation and demand. However, I think the patronising tone of the message presumes we potential readers of f/f just want good stuff for free. That we’re lazy and cheap. In my experience, romance readers — perhaps particularly romance readers who care about more diverse romance, including queer romance — generally respect author labor and care about supporting the folks who write the stories we love to read. But our feminist political commitment to supporting queer f/f writers doesn’t mean we are all rich and it doesn’t mean we want ANY AND ALL f/f content as individual readers. We pick and choose the f/f stories we will take a chance on just like any other romance purchase. And, sadly, the more times I have chanced that f/f purchase and been disappointed, the more reluctantly I approach the next offer.
One more story. There was a great panel a few years ago about the early years of On Our Backs, the lesbian feminist porn magazine. They had a centerfold — in the great tradition of porn magazines — and one of the former editors on the panel, Susie Bright, told this wonderful story. That they used to get letters from readers AGONIZING about their feelings of desire for the centerfold. “What are her politics?” they would write and ask:
“Dear “On Our Backs,” — one letter-writer would say– “I do not know how to feel about your centerfold model. What if she’s not a good person? I do not know her politics. I cannot decide whether I should attempt to jill off to this picture when I do not know where she stands on ecology, race relations, veganism.”
And the editor was like: “Here is the gift of a naked woman! Can you not just accept this gift if it makes you feel good??”
“But I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel if I don’t know her stance on nuclear proliferation!!!”
Women who desire women (cis and trans alike, though we experience cultural pressures differently) experience a lot of shame and anxiety about not getting desire “right”. Am I feminist enough? Am I gay enough? Should I enjoy penetration if I’m a lesbian and a feminist? If I’m not turned on by this woman is it a sign of internalized misogyny? When I speak with other queer readers yearning for f/f romance in the marketplace we acknowledge the shame and self-blame that happens every time we read an f/f story we feel less than enthusiastic about: Is this just not a story I like OR AM I A BAD QUEER FEMINIST???
So shaming queer women for not buying more f/f — and blaming them, as reader-consumers, for the lack of f/f stories being published — is all tangled up in this long history of queer, feminist women worried about getting our sexual pleasure correct politically. OF COURSE readers have absorbed all manner of biases (sexist and otherwise) as part of our cultural stew. Asking ourselves why we are compelled by certain narratives and not others is TOTALLY valid. But, “buy f/f and stuff you like will eventually be written!” is…not that call to self-reflection.
*I don’t talk about libraries in this post in part because they are another access point/barrier to reading queer romance. I have a library widget on my browser that tells me if a book is available at any of the three public library networks I have access to. Only rarely are the romance novels I am looking for available to me free from the library. So readers who cannot afford even the $2.99/book pricepoints have even more barriers to access.
**Unless it’s an f/f by the same author — thankfully an occurrance growing in frequency
the feminist librarian 
If you are looking for numerous lesfic titles at a bargain, I Heart Lesfic is hosting their annual September Lesfic sale. https://iheartlesfic.com
Discounted lesfic books of many types also pop up on Bookbub in the LGBT category.
Thanks for your thoughts.
All the best,
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Thanks for the tip!
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I agree with what you are saying. At the same time I want to scream but!
All of these solutions exist.
The Lesbian Review breaks down catgories by tags including all the genres you listed. There are top 10 lists in most categories as well.
Jae, a highly regarded lesfic author has monthly Lesbian Book Bingo posts for many of these categories and has written books in many categories. Yes her books are $10 but well deserved.
Many independent authors write high quality books and have them in the Kindle Unlimited program. Almost everyone can afford $10 a month to read as much as they want. And for those who can’t, many books are available under $5.
And as mentioned above, the I heart lesfic newsletter and others let you know when sales are happening.
It seems to me the only barrier is that people aren’t finding these resources and I don’t know why. It didn’t take me long to find them all once I found the Lesbian Review. Now I have more books than I know what to do with in Kindle Unlimited alone.
I apologize for not adding links but I am on my phone.
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You bring up thoughtful counterpoints and I appreciate that.
I think some of what’s happening, when people aren’t using The Lesbian Review and other options you outline, is that these are a separate marketing and review ecosystem from the ecosystem of review and marketing of other types of romance. So to find new authors and titles, people have to navigate a second system with little crossover from the one they are familiar with (if they are coming through f/m and m/m readership circles and authors they know they like). Whether we feel it’s useful or not to put the onus on readers to navigate those resources and locate authors they will enjoy, if — for whatever time/energy/money reason — they are not, that means f/f fiction is not getting in front of readers’ eyeballs and if the promotion/marketing changed possibly it would.
“Lesbian fiction” is an important category, but I think it also has a distinct history and a somewhat separate genre identity than f/f romance. Not everyone interested in f/f romance feels welcome in lesbian spaces, or is looking for lesbian characters. This is not an argument for the category of “lesbian fiction” to go away but an acknowledgement that there are readers looking for f/f who have not found the lesbian fiction world to be particularly welcoming (myself, sometimes, included).
Finally, I think there’s an important piece of this puzzle that is reader disappointment. As a reader of queer romance, I have had a LOT of success building out my list of beloved authors and read-alikes in f/m amd m/m. Once I found a few anchor authors I’ve been able to build out my reading list that speaks to the type of work I particularly enjoy. I have struggled to do this with lesbian fiction. This either means that the referral strategies that I used for f/m and m/m don’t work for f/f … or it means that the f/f work out there is not to my taste … or it’s there but it isn’t being marketed in ways that I am familiar with from the other genres, and from fic, that help me find “my” people and “my” stories. Every so often I give a work that seems to fit the bill a try, and when I do it’s often disappointing for one reason or another. And with that disappointment comes a lack of energy to pick up and try again. I do, the next time a possible win comes along, but it’s hard to get my hopes up and then experience disappointment repeatedly.
Again, “for every book it’s reader,” and I am happy that most of the books that disappoint me are out in the world making folks happy. But it doesn’t alter the underlying sadness that I have not been able to find the stories that speak to me.
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If people only ask for recommendations they will be limited to what their friends have also found. If those people are in the same circles as you, how will you find the other circles? It’s funny how rarely people simply google it. But, if someone won’t use the world lesbian in the search how do you find f/f? It’s an abbreviation that is very difficult for search engines to work with I suspect.
This comes up with hashtags for me. Lesfic is an easy hashtag. What hashtag should I use if I want to get beyond that circle to get general f/f readers?
I’ve read a lot of lesfic this year and I can’t see why f/f readers wouldn’t feel welcome there. This really confuses me. What is it that f/f readers want that they don’t think they’ll see in the lesfic community?
I’m not judging either community, I’m just trying to understand this. Because everyone loses with these isolated communities.
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I have a F/F series, The Olivia Chronicles, that may fit your preferences. It’s on KU and they are under $4 per book (books 1 and 2 are $2.99 and book 3 is $3.99). I have a non-paranormal novel coming out next week that is also F/F and is priced at $4.99.
You might also enjoy Adan Ramie’s Deviant Behaviors series if you like procedurals with a strong female lead that look into things like cult behavior.
I agree that $9.99 for an eBook is a high price, but there are some emerging indies out there–the key is finding them.
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Thank you for the rec! I’m adding them to my queue now. ❤
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Awesome. Sorry for the repost–I wasn’t sure the first one went through for moderation as I wasn’t signed in.
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I’m an indie writer whose books feature f/f relationships. My Olivia Chronicles series has vampires and voodoo–it might fit your reading preferences. I keep my prices reasonable for eBooks and am currently exclusive with Amazon and in KU.
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An interesting part to all of this is that it takes a LOT of sales for authors to make a living let alone a profit off their book sales via Amazon. The Begin Self Publishing Podcast Ep 59 went into the details of how many books and at what prices authors needed to sell to break even, let alone make a livable wage. It was astounding.
KU also has a lot of garbage sold under lesfic, with authors who are quite celebrated, that no reader would accept in a trad pubbed book- head hopping, plot holes, interchangeable characters, terrible dialog, deus ex machina, and other garbage. We seem to be able to accept a lot of these issues because the main characters are wlw and there is some hot f/f sexy times. (There are also a LOT of really amazing authors self-pubbing in KU.)
For me, the main reason to go with KU has been the ability to sample a great number of different authors- see if I like their writing style or if I want to throw the book across the room when the author head hops and I have no idea who is thinking. I can sample someone, then support them by reading their entire back catalog (if they have one) or tweeting/Facebooking about them plus adding a short review.
Anyway, back to my point, part of the reason the prices in wlw;f/f;lesfic are so high is that the authors don’t sell as many copies as the other romance genres and they need to make back their investment. I’ve noticed that some of the small publisher of wlw;f/f;lesfic also keep their books at specific price points for all their books, with occasional sales or pushing into KU to gain readers. M/M and F/M are much bigger genres.
Perhaps the Venn diagrams don’t overlap because many people who read F/F aren’t going to read M/M and many don’t read F/M. (in the small sample of WLW folks I talk to online most would not read M/M books.) On the other hand, there are a huge number of F/M romance readers who also read M/M but don’t yet read F/F. (and may never.) M/M has been getting a huge boost in social media, most of the romance podcasts I read have done one more shows about M/M authors.
I don’t do historicals, but paranormal/Urban fantasy is my jam. Some of Max Ellendale’s work might interest you- some of it pansexual and features male shifter characters, but there are plenty of f/f scenes. Stephanie Ahn’s debut novel had some great points but the storyline was solid- trigger warning for some heavy BDSM. Bridget Essex writes short sweet shifter romances with a lot of sex. Jea Hawkin’s most recent novel As Long as Love Lasts, was an interesting twist on historical- with part of it set in the 40s as flashbacks/reads from a diary with a modern romance happening as well.
Anyway, I read a lot, if you want to follow my Goodreads page I’ll link it, If I like a book I’ll give it 3 stars or more, it- if there isn’t a star I didn’t like it. IF I really like it I leave a short review/tweet/post on facebook. https://www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/10174034
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Thank you so much for your thoughts and all of your suggestions!
You observe, “Perhaps the Venn diagrams don’t overlap because many people who read F/F aren’t going to read M/M and many don’t read F/M,” and I do think that’s true! As someone who wants to read across all of those categories, this conversation is crystallizing something that I have felt but never articulated along those lines. That as a reader/writer across all of these categories, it has been hard for me to have in-depth conversations with people who exclusively focus on f/f about quality and craft and reading, because my reference points are different then theirs. It’s almost like we don’t have enough commonality to make meaningful recommendations to one another.
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I think it’s really hard to believe that there are many who read all three categories when we who are firmly in the f/f realm don’t ever see them. Instead we see people in trad pub and readers that focus in that realm complaining they can’t get quality f/f yet we are over here screaming that there are many in the self published realm. Now, if you are looking at specific niches it definitely gets more difficult, I understand that.
I’m still so confused by this situation, but haven’t had time to dive into your reviews to understand what you are looking for yet. I’ve read some incredibly good books this year. I’ve read a lot that are solid, but perhaps not at the level you’d look for Anna. I don’t know.
I’ve learned a lot from reading Jae’s books, for instance. Perfect Rhythm helped me understand asexuality and my own body better. Backwards to Oregon touched me deeply as a masculine of center person reading about a person living as a man in a time when that was the only real option available to her.
Perhaps my favorite book of the year, Casting Lacey, was funny and frustrating and so well done I can’t believe it’s a debut novel.
I just read Jea Hawkins’ As Long As Love Lasts which is a beautiful, often painful look into the lives of two couples across different decades.
I’m currently reading Cara Malone’s Cinders. Both Cara and Jea have self published many books and their current writing shows that experience. It’s well done and enjoyable.
If you like a large cast of characters, I recommend the Ann McMann Jericho series. It’s smart, funny, and you get to know many people in the town. It feels so real.
I’ll also add, the ease of self publishing seems to be creating more books that break the romance formula. They still follow the HEA requirement, but in the middle you have different elements that makes for interesting stories. The most interesting comment in the reviews for my book was when someone said it didn’t read like a normal lesfic book. It made me happy because I didn’t want to write something just anyone could write. I wanted to write something a little different, that made people think, and maybe would help them in their life someday.
I’m not averse to reading non-f/f, but like you, I don’t know where to start or what I would like, and since I have so many books in my queue, it’s not a priority. I suspect I’ll branch into the other categories when exploring sci fi or fantasy. And when I do have that time, I know at least one person to reach out to for recommendations!
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There is also a very strong sentiment in the f/f;lesfic;etc… community to NOT comment on… poor writing and when one does it is met with resistance. The conversation about quality does not seem to be welcome. That said, I have seen a sharp rise in the quality of the self pubbed book in KU under the WLW;F/F;lesfic heading. Most people seem to pub a book and then reinvest the money I editing and covers for the next book. I’ve seen a number of authors go back and change covers as they make sales. Right now the WLW;F/F;lesfic community of self pubbed authors is incredibly DIY and I’d equate it with where self pubbing was 5 or 6 years ago.
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There are certainly some stories that I read that aren’t worth finishing. When I didn’t realize how much was out there I put up with some poorer quality books. But now I feel I’ve found some really quality books and am working through the back catalog of those authors. It is difficult to know what people see in some of these books, and I wish there was a way to discuss quality more easily in reviews.
I know why most won’t though. When there’s traditionally been so little available, you’re grateful for anything. When you are underrepresented in fiction, you will tolerate poor writing. I’m certain Anna had to do this when exploring m/m at first. We who read f/f exclusively had to do the same. We were just all looking for different things apparently, which is why we put the effort into our chosen pairing interest.
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Thank you, this makes more sense. To clarify, I agree our time is valuable and I’m learning to just dnf books rather than push through. I may be a more forgiving reader, but I don’t put up with transphobic, biphobic, racism etc unless it’s a intricate part of the MC growth as a person. The most challenging book I read was An Outsider Inside and it started off so biphobic, but that’s where the character was. By the end I was so impressed with the book that I recommend it for people looking for something different. I believe it won an award this year at GCLS.
Here’s my concern, as I think about all that’s been said. If we find a way to market to a larger audience, which I’m still not sure how to do since I don’t know the hashtags for f/f or what else to do (I searched around on twitter for a while), it sounds like a lot of readers won’t trust that it’s good enough to read anyway. If readers are so gun shy because of prior experience, how do we overcome that?
Finally, in no way did I mean to say you don’t exist. Until your post, however, I didn’t know queer women wrote m/m. I was told that it was mostly straight women, which turned me off of the genre as well. I’m far more interested in reading the experiences of other queers in their own words, at least while exploring the genre initially. I know people can write great stories outside their own experience.
I suspect I’m not the only person who is just now learning about queer women reading m/m. I’m following you on twitter now. Are there other folks I should follow on twitter to learn about these other areas? Actually, I’m going to ask you that on twitter as it’s easier to answer there.
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Discussing quality in reviews is pretty straightforward until the author has a hissy fit then accuses other authors of directing their fans to give the bad reviews. And if you are also an author or wannabe author and you leave any negative feedback in a review it looks as though you are attacking the other author…
I have stopped reading books with the issues I posted above. I read fast and can slog through just about anything but honestly, my time is worth something. My lem/DNF shelf isn’t public but maybe it should be.
I’m tired of accepting scraps.
(LCHerbert is me, I didn’t know I even had the old WP account but my phone was logged into it.)
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butchjax, you wrote: “I think it’s really hard to believe that there are many who read all three categories when we who are firmly in the f/f realm don’t ever see them.”
I don’t know that I am making an argument about percentages. The argument I am making is about the industry structures, marketing, and potential readers that the structures of f/f publishing and promotion are not taking advantage of. I am a reference librarian and think about things like discoverability, promotion, and reviewing in my work life as well as thinking about romance as a reader and writer. My observation is that the structures of f/f publishing and marketing are not getting books that some readers looking for f/f would be interested in reading, into the hands of those potential readers in a way that successfully persuades those readers to buy them. Not every book is for every reader, but from the perspective of someone who tries to get resources matched with the people who are looking for those resources, I am seeing a STRUCTURAL breakdown. Blaming individual readers for those structural mechanisms that work against their access to materials they would potentially be interested in is not productive.
To borrow an example from my work as a reference librarian: I work in a special collections library that has unique manuscript collections that are relevant to many aspects of U.S. history. The structure of a non-circulating research library is intimidating to many users — the security procedures, the catalog, the specialized vocabulary, even the building which is a late-19th century space with marble and a spiral staircase in the front lobby, etc. We can shout “WE ARE OPEN TO THE PUBLIC” until we are hoarse from shouting, but simply telling people they are welcome cannot always erase the feeling of being an outsider people feel when they enter the space. Their worries may be unfounded (in our view) but blaming them is not going to get them in the door. As a member of the staff, it is my JOB to lower those barriers in order to increase the number of users who access and make use of our materials. If I don’t do that, our user base will probably stay pretty homogeneous and stable numerically. We could decide, as an institution, that we don’t want to increase and diversify the number of users. But we can’t complain that users aren’t finding our stuff if we don’t change our institutional practices to make it easier to find us, find our collections, and listen to those non-users when they tell us why they don’t feel comfortable in our spaces, or feel like our resources are useful them.
To bring the example back to f/f content, the onus would be on the publishers and/or authors if they are self-publishing. If they are content with the size and shape of the audiences who are finding them, purchasing their work, etc., there is no reason for them to change their practices. If they want to attract new readers/new customers, then having conversations with the queer women who write and market m/m and m/f to an enthusiastic queer female readership would be one way to achieve that. As would reading the work of authors who are writing stories we pre-order months in advance and think how those stories are crafted.
You may not have meant that “hard to believe” statement as one that questions my bona fides as a reader — and writer — of stories with f/f relationships, but that is kind of how it sounds. I do actually exist, as does my wife, as do many other readers and writers in our circles. One of the reasons you may not “see [us]” in lesfic spaces is that, repeatedly, when we are offered entry-points into lesfic by folks who are participating in those communities, but not a more heterogeneous romance community, we are repeatedly disappointed by those stories. And that’s PAINFUL. It’s really painful to gear yourself up to read a book multiple people have told you will be delicious … and then find it has multiple problems from a writing perspective and sometimes from a content perspective (racism, transphobia, etc.). This, together with the criticism-averse culture LCHarbert points toward in their comments, leads to a situation where it feels comparatively difficult to trust people who enthuse about a particular work that sounds like it might be worth putting on the to-read list.
While you are correct that shitty writing and horrendously problematic content issues exist in fanfic and original romance across all pairings. But it has more difficult (for a host of structural and cultural reasons) to find reliable recommendations for f/f than it did for fanfic, for m/f, for f/f. The end result of that, again from an industry perspective, is that there is an audience eager to read f/f who are ready to drop money on authors who write to their sweet spot. Whether current lesfic authors/publishers will begin to successfully expand their readership — or if we see new authors emerge who write f/f romance for this currently under-served audience — is yet to be determined. I imagine it will turn out to be a combination of both and additional market shifts I have not the wisdom to predict!
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(My apologies for the weird way WordPress is threading these comments…)
butchjax, you wrote: “Until your post, however, I didn’t know queer women wrote m/m.”
If you are interested in queer female participation in m/m generally, you might want to check out the scholarship of Lucy Neville, and specifically her book Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys. If you can’t access it in your libary network DM me and I’ll see what I can do. Among the over 500 study participants, 55% of respondants identified as something other than straight (pp. 3, 225).
If you are interested in my own participation as a reader/writer of m/m, and my thoughts on what it means to be a cis, queer woman reading and writing about the sexual lives of characters unlike myself, a couple of previous posts that may be useful: this post from 2013 where I respond to the charge that women reading and writing m/m is on its face appropriative (see the section “Can, or should, women write erotica about gay men?” for just that specific discussion), and this post from February 2018 where I talk about some of the broader cultural reasons some women might struggle with f/f stories as both readers and creators. And of course I am always up for discussion on Twitter!
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Just commenting to say this is such a great post. For context, I’m a dedicated f/f reader (with little to no experience or interest wrt the m/m and m/f scenes/industry) and I think your critiques and analysis are spot on. The pricing, the quality issues, the lack of diversity – these are all seriously holding the genre back, and the community of dedicated f/f readers seems to be too insular to want to meaningfully engage with these problems.
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Do you only read books from publishing houses? Most self published authors are much less than $10 a book. There are many doing quality work, and while I agree diversity is an issue, more people are addressing it and introducing diverse characters. Where I’m struggling is to find good examples of how to write diverse characters well. There are some good resources, but not enough.
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