Anyone who’s visited my website or looked at the signature of my e-mails will have noticed that for the past year or so I’ve been claiming to be “Turning Romance on its Head”. That’s been my strap line. I changed it from “The Known Unknown”. Why? Cause sometimes you need to freshen things up.
“The Known Unknown” was all right as an introduction strap line. It came, of course, from the famous Donald Rumsfeld speech in which he blabbered on about known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns – confusing the hell out of everyone who heard him. For me, “The Known Unknown” was an acknowledgement that I was a relatively new kid on the block in terms of the erotic romance publishing world and that a lot of people wouldn’t know who I was or what I did.
Plus, it sounded sort of cool.
“Turning Romance on its Head” was born out of my belief that I was offering something different. Let’s face facts, romance and erotic romance is dominated by women. Women authors, women readers and women characters. You tend to find that the point of view character in romance and erotic romance novels is the female lead (or heroine, if you prefer). Except in the M/M genre, obviously. And the hero is often mysterious and the reader is never quite sure about them or what they are thinking or feeling.
On the other hand, Kissed by a Rose, which was the impending release when I took on the new line, was told entirely from the male lead’s (or hero’s) point of view. Indeed, in that book it is Chloe, the heroine, who is the mysterious one and the one the reader is never quite sure about. Adam, the hero, has his thoughts and feelings laid bare to the reader throughout.
I took the stereotype of the romance novel and turned it on its head. Not only that, but Adam is a different type of romantic hero too – almost the exact opposite of the stereotype.
So the strap line “Turning Romance on its Head” seemed appropriate. But now I think it’s time for a new strap line. My website is in need of a refresh and so it seems like a good time to affect the change. But what to change it to – that, my friends, is the question.
I’ve been invited to take part in the Romance and Erotic Book blog tour on October 3rd and I’ve already written my piece for it. I had the opportunity to write about anything I felt like so I wrote about being a man in a woman’s world. And in the piece I’ve hinted that I may switch the strap line to “A Man Who Gets It.” This is a reference to the review of Kissed by a Rose by Acquanetta Ferguson for the San Diego Examiner. In it she says…
Bottom line, this is a well written romance written by a man who gets it.
Also, “A Man Who Gets It” could be taken to mean… well, you know…
But then, yesterday, Juggleboy made a comment on my blog post in which he said…
Your writing is intelligent romance/erotica for a new generation of readers
Which flattered me somewhat. And I have to admit I like the sound of it. So how about a strap line along the lines of “Intelligent Erotic Romance”? Or “Intelligent Romance for a New Generation”? Or something like “Intelligent. Sexy. Romantic.”
Lot’s of options then and I’ll admit, I’m torn and I really don’t know which I’ll go with. So any feedback you may have would be appreciated.