How are romance writers — and the recent romance boom — chipping away at the norms of Big Publishing? Does self-publishing lead to more diverse authors and characters? How has Amazon both expanded and limited the market? That’s what we’re grappling with in today’s episode. Back in June, romance novelist Nisha Sharma broke down all the tropes and trends of contemporary romance. Next month, we’ll have the owners of a romance bookstore explaining the the big (and complicated) business of romance-only bookselling. And today, we have Christine Larson, author of Love in the Time of Self-Publishing, walking us through the labor dynamics of romance publishing. If you like thinking about different ways of organizing labor, you’ll find all of this fascinating — and if you’re a romance fan, it’ll make you think a lot about which books end up in front of you and why. You’re gonna love it.Join the ranks of paid subscribers and get bonus content, access to the discussion threads, ad-free episodes, and the knowledge that you're supporting an indie pod trying to make its way in the world. If you're already a subscriber-- thank you! Join us in the discussion thread for this episode! Got a question or idea for a future episode? Let us know here. To hear more, visit culturestudypod.substack.com