It Takes (at least) Two: The Work to Make Romance Work

Abstract

Digitalization has motivated romance novelists to move from traditional to self-publishing online. However, engagement with flexible and responsive, yet precarious and biased algorithmic systems online pose challenges for novelists. Through surveying and interviewing the novelists, and using the lens of feminist political economy, we investigate how digitalization has impacted the novelists' work practices. Our findings detail the increased agency afforded by self-publishing online, which comes at the expense of performing new forms of work individually, collectively, and with assistance, otherwise performed by publishing houses. We focus on the immaterial, invisible, and unpaid work that the novelists and the ecology of workers surrounding them conducted. We make recommendations for designing digital labor platforms that support the work practices of self-employed digital workers toward a more sustainable, collective, and inclusive future(s) of work.