It's Tough Being a Bisexual Writer

Okay, I’ll admit that title is misleading. I am a writer, but I am not bisexual. However, when it comes to writing, I can relate to some of my bisexual friends. I can practically hear you thinking, ‘Uh, Trish, that doesn’t make any sense’.  Let me see if I can explain.

When I first started writing, I was strictly writing male/female romance, meaning all of my stories had a male and female couple falling in love with each other. That is also the type of story I liked to read. It was rare for me to read non-straight fiction, but one day I found myself reading male/male romances and enjoying them as much as their male/female counterparts.

With as many of these m/m romances as I was reading, it wasn’t long before I wanted to try my hand at writing them. In the beginning, it was adding gay characters as secondary characters. Later, it was writing a m/m book in an otherwise all m/f series. One book would be m/m and the other three would be m/f, and I would usually put the m/m book in the middle after introducing one or more of the characters in earlier books, hoping to get readers invested.

Now, I’m writing an entire five book m/m series. I haven’t stopped writing m/f romance though. I intend to keep writing both. I’m not the only author who does it, but you know what I’ve discovered?

Some readers refuse to read m/f or m/m books, no matter how much they love an author. If they like m/m, that is all they will read. Just today, I saw a question in a Facebook readers’ group asking if skipping a m/f/m book in an otherwise m/m series would cause any issues with understanding the events in future books that were only m/m. That reader absolutely did not want to read the male/female/male romance simply because of the female being a romantic and sexual partner for the two males.

Because of this, there are some authors who write both m/f and m/m romances but use different pen names for each trope. I don’t use a pen name, never have. I know a lot of authors do, but I never saw the point. All of my books, whether they are m/m or m/f or even m/f/m are going to be written under my name. Readers that despise one or the other can choose not to read those books. I’m okay with that, but I want to make a couple of things clear.

This is not a phase. I like to write books for both the m/f and m/m audience. I’m not going to pick a side. I’m perfectly happy as an equal opportunity writer. I’m not secretly happier writing m/m and just unwilling to admit it. I enjoy writing m/f as much as I do m/m. Each satisfies me in a different way.

While I would like it if all of my readers loved all of my books, I know that’s not realistic. Everyone has their preferences, and I’m not out to change them. I just hope you’ll do me the same courtesy and not abandon me for liking both tropes. Just read the books you like and let others do the same. And for those of you equal opportunity readers, thank you for supporting me no matter what.