It was just over a year ago that Romentics, a publisher of romances targeted toward gay men, landed on the scene. We thought, sure, the market is pretty robust, they’re going to do fine. It turns out that Scott Whittier and Scott Pomfret are meeting our expectations (for which we thank them). After all, if you’re looking for a little free publicity, there’s nothing like a long profile in the New York Times. Heck, one wonder what’s going on at the paper when the first thing on the page is a come-hither scene from one of Scott & Scott’s books (you get to choose which Scott).
The novels hew closely to traditional romance, with one exception (again, we’ll let you guess; we’re fun that way), and the Scotts believe they’ve tapped into a key desire for their audience: positive romantic relationships. Of course they realize there’s a fantasy element to their books, but then there’s a fantasy element to most fiction. And as for that darn formula?
And he [Scott] never feels limited by the form’s conventions? He looked incredulous. “You have to end up happily ever after, but a million things could happen before that,” he said. “It’s ‘write what you know,’ but make it more fabulous.”
