MembreFrancescaZadra

BL—"boys' love"—is a Japanese term for male/male content with a presumed female audience. It's not a genre per se, but it has thematic and stylistic tendencies that are different from, say, gay literature.

We find BL media all over Asia and in fanfiction in English. It has historically been less common as pro novels in English, but with the founding of GRL and the rise of ebooks, this marketing niche has come into its own.

However, many readers have not kept up: Fanfic readers don't know how much original stuff is out there, and there aren't many big indexes of the niche. I'd love to be able to click a button and be shown a list of everything that's m/m werewolf FBI mysteries or m/m high fantasy. Instead, I'm stuck with algorithms and popularity-ranked recs lists serving me up the same 5 names everybody already knows.

Worse, "M/M romance", as the niche is often ambiguously called, tends to be self published or indie published, often only as an ebook. Titles disappear at the drop of a hat, never to be seen again.

Over time, I hope to:

• serve as an index of what exists for readers looking for their next book
• normalize the existence of this niche for English speakers
  
• give indie works and new authors with few titles an even playing field
• help myself find works where romance is the b-plot to a mystery/urban fantasy/etc. a-plot
  
• include other queer books, labeled distinctly, to help people find other types of queer content and understand the different vibes of these niches
• include more non-English titles
  
• get my own name as an author out there by providing a useful tool to the community
  

I'm an author of queer urban fantasy mystery. I'm an amateur historian of queer media, particularly BL type media, including slash fanfiction.