I'm starting to figure this out.

[julian_griffith]

 If you take the world of romance as being like the entire world of fanfiction, then the sub-genres are the individual fandoms.

So there are paranormals with their subdivisions: vampire, werewolf, psychics, faeries, witches. And there are Westerns, both historical and contemporary. And police stuff, and military, and the ones about billionaires, and historicals of various periods... you get the idea. And of course they come in slash and het variations, as well as other stuff.

I have never had a whole lot of fandoms. I tend to stick to a few. And even in those, I don't often read widely, unless it's a tiny little fandom.

So it's not an actual failing that entire subgenres of romance hold no appeal for me.

They're just not my fandoms.

Comments

[recessional]

I think part of that is because the failure-mode of fandom is negligible ("oh noes, nobody commented"), where there's more investment from a publisher.

Not all of it, obviously, but I think it's a factor - art sans economic pressure is always more out there in little niche places all over the place (and in the weirdness) before the marketable world catches up.