How often do you read BL novels?

[MartinLevy]

HI!

I'm Martin Levy, and I’m the author of the BL novel The Little Night.

Recently I came across an article saying that BL is still considered a pretty niche genre.

What do you think about that?

[Lensing]

I think it´s exactly the opposite, it´s a super popular webcomics genre.

I personally don´t read it.

[ThunderChicken]

It is a niche, just like horror is a niche, and mystery is a niche, and humour is a niche, and sic ad nauseum.

However, it is a large niche, and although it has a fairly targeted audience (women are the largest reader group, followed by gay men - there are probably few straight men that read it) it can even have some mainstream appeal, as the Heated Rivalry series has recently shown.

[shadowmarksenpai]

Absolutely not- but I do think BL novels are less known than the Manhwa/Manga counterparts. As a genre though, it is one of the most oversaturated to date XD

[Kelheor]

I think that a person is probably way too young to read and write romantic media or over 50 and haven't visited any manga sites if they think that BL in general is "still a niche genre", because IDK where have they been for the last 25 years, clearly not seeing this very popular genre on all the comic and fiction sites

[NOOR_ASAKZ05]

I hate this classification

[jwabeasley]

It seems like a burgeoning and very common genre for web fiction. Women seem to enjoy it about as much as straight men like lesbian ...visual media. There are whole galaxies of specific BL subgenres based on highly specific tropes.

I don't really engage with it myself. I'm not judging or anything, it's just not for me. I don't generally like GL or even hetero smut, either. Then again, , things that I don't personally enjoy tend to have a massive overlap with things that most people enjoy.

It's a bit wild how many potential paying gigs a capable artist could get if they were into omegaverse BL. Probably more of those than all other genres combined.

[MartinLevy]

Why do you hate it?

[MattiesMoments]

I haven't read a BL novel, but I do have all sorts of relationships in my reading history for webcomics. haha
It's all great.

[silverraven0]

I wonder if the article is about Sublime discourse on Twitter lmao.

So bl is a super popular genre, but people who did not seek it will probably won't know about it much, but it is a very large industry.

The main popularization and most well known bl's came from Japan (the pioneer I can say), Korea, and for those that didn't know it might be surprised, but china is also one of the largest contribution for bl's popularity despite the censorships in it's media. MTL like Google translate has come a long way, but Japanese & Korean translation is still far off, while it's improves massively in the past few years for the Chinese language so it's of no problem to just MTL danmei (bl genre in china) and just read them.

I don't think Americans gay novels have that overly popular status like the one on the Asia but there's some that popped off too like heated rivalry (I have never read/watch those unfortunately) and the like.

I personally consume bl almost every day. I might have a problem tho, but I do read a lot in daily basis mix with others genre.

[Lensing]

Some people asked in the past when @NOOR_ASAKZ05 wrote that he hates BL, but they
never answer this question

[MartinLevy]

Honestly I tried to find the article again but no luck so far. I cannot say right away where I saw it.
What I do remember clearly is my reaction to it. There was strong internal disagreement.

Maybe that reaction is connected to the fact that I write BL myself, but calling it a niche or unpopular genre sounded strange to me.

Then again I might be completely biased because I'm a hopeless fan and consume a huge amount of it

[bumblebeelz]

Taking a quick glance at the Community tab, eight of the top ten popular novels (as of writing this) are tagged BL for their main genre. The other two novels are tagged LGBTQ+ as their main, but still center on romantic relationships involving men. So... yeah. At least on Tapas, BL reigns supreme.

[MartinLevy]

That's a good point.

[NOOR_ASAKZ05]

I was busy studying and didn't check the notifications.

[NOOR_ASAKZ05]

I just don't like it

[GiveMeThatBread]

How about we don't hate on genres that others enjoy?

[silverraven0]

I don't read the article but did get this tweet thread that's pretty good to read regarding sublime claim about it don't doing good sales.

https://x.com/i/status/2023107387394077133

Honestly kinda funny how they claim to be the biggest bl publisher but the number of bl titles published by them weren't even as much as other company (and their refusal to publish bl manga with 10 over volumes).

[MartinLevy]

I can believe that BL sales might not meet what some publishers expect. Straight romance probably reaches more people overall, so the comparison might look that way.

At the same time, from what I see around me, more and more people start reading BL. Even some of my friends who used to dislike it or did not understand the appeal now read it quite happily.

Which is nice to see. Though my view might be biased. Or it might simply be my terrible influence on my friends