The Guardian’s article written by a reader report writer – the person who reads books for evaluation by a publishing house – gave me a LOT to chew on.
1. I hadn’t realized but am not surprised that American places market well overseas but not in the reverse – people in Europe, as the article says, will read about divorce in northern Jersey, but people in America will not read about divorce in the Jersey Islands.
Well, except me, that is. I’d love to read about anything set in the Jersey Islands. Or more specifically, romance in any interesting locale, especially those that speak English but aren’t England or the US. Canada! Why aren’t there more romances set in Canada?
2. English is a dominant language that beats down other languages. It’s true. JaneDrew’s signature file made me giggle so hard I have to share it: English: A language that lurks in dark alleys, beats up other languages, and rifles through their pockets for spare vocabulary. HA! And not only is English a linguistic bully but it’s a cultural bully on the international book marketplace, too. Even I fall prey to it – I just said I wanted to read romances set in other locales besides London and the US where the language is English.
This isn’t because I have some bias against other languages; it’s merely that writing in English when the setting and everything around it are in another language becomes hard to present with any degree of accuracy without becoming annoying.
3. This is the part that really tickled my brain: report readers have an opportunity to potentially keep books off the shelves. Whoa. I had no idea. So who is Cassie Edwards’ report reader, or is she such a guaranteed sell that she doesn’t have one? Are there report readers for romance? How does that work? Are you one?
The full Nicoll quote in all its glory:
The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
I’m British and write British characters (yes, they are, even when they’re in a space opera that never mentions Earth or its nations). Going by the comments I’ve had, this is part of the appeal my books have to at least some of my American readers. On the other hand, my being epublished means that my readership may not be typical…
The character was French Canadian (very stereotypical French Canadian) in the book I read.
And if someone’s looking for books set in Canada, Kelley Armstrong uses TO sometimes. She’s one of three paranormal writers I still read.
What annoys me here is that almost all the examples people have of books set in Canada are set in southern Ontario, and more specifically the greater Toronto area. Toronto is only a tiny section of Canada. Having every Canadian book set in Toronto is like having every American book set in New York City, and pretending that all of the rest of the US was just like the Bronx!
Most of us outside Toronto don’t hate Toronto, but to many of us it might as well be part of the US for all its differences from the rest of the country. And we do get a little tired of editors telling us that stories set in the rest of Canada have to be changed to be set in the US.
I read loads of books set in Canada ages ago. Must have been some sort of phase(or simply what I found), but most of them were historic ones, where they went to the territories to the west (so not placed in Ontario). All the men seemed to become mounties, though.
I have read romance novels by Norwegian authors, set in Norway, but as others here have said; it’s too much like home. Norwegians are highly un-romantic, so to make it credible, it often just gets dull.
Admittedly, I’ve overdosed on novels set in the USA, so for me it’s been mostly about Britain for a while now. Strangely enough, Britain is more foreign to me than the USA is.
(earth51: I knew I should’ve mention what I feel about books set in all the rest of the countries too…)
This is one of my favorite t-shirts.
Crap. I meant This is one of my favorite t-shirts.