AAR’s 2022 numbers for queer and AoC romances
According to an oft cited study by the romance bookstore The Ripped Bodice, in 2022 12.3% of romances published last year were written by authors of color. For the last few years, I’ve shared AAR’s 2022 numbers for reviews of books written by non-white authors. (Note that these reviews are not limited to books published in 2022–there are the numbers for the books we reviewed in 2022.)
I used our Power Search Beta to look at our numbers. This means I relied on tags, so if a book wasn’t tagged correctly, my numbers will reflect that.
In 2022, AAR published 448 book reviews. Of these 30% were DIKS. 16% of our reviews featured books written by authors of color and 6% of our DIKs were by authors of color.
We also continued to cover non-het books robustly. 20% of our reviews featured queer leads as did 7% of our DIKs.
Books written by and/or featuring non-white and/or non-het people were well […]
I’m a greedy reader. If I like a book, I tell every person on earth (who will listen) about it and insist they read it right away, regardless of the types of book they tell me they like, or even if they (god forbid) tell me they ‘don’t read romance.’ And if the author has a back catalog and/or the book I loved is the start of a series, I buy or borrow the other titles right away, regardless of price, and I move those books right to the top of my TBR pile. Very little will deter me from a binge, even though I’m always sad when they come to an end. #sorrynotsorry
When it comes to the gay romance I like them best with at least a touch of magic; it can make for fascinating worlds and thrilling conflict. But sometimes it’s tough to find a book that’s just right. That’s when picking up an anthology is the perfect solution.
So when I considered the selection of magical heroes I would like to recommend I decided to spotlight one of my favorite anthologies: 
A few weeks ago, one of those Facebook reminders popped up in my feed, highlighting my tweet from last July when we announced Agents Irish and Whiskey. A year ago, I was celebrating with friends in San Diego before my first RWA National Conference. My first writing conference of any kind. I don’t think I ever fully grasped the saying “time flies” until that reminder message. I can’t believe all that has changed for me, and Aidan and Jamie, over the past year, as three books and A LOT of explosions later, we reach the conclusion of the Agents Irish and Whiskey series. Is it bittersweet to finish my first series? A little. Is it a relief? More than a little, not that other projects aren’t already in full swing. Am I happy with where AIW is ending? You bet!
Step 1. Brainstorming
Hi! I’m Avon Gale, and I’m here today to talk a little about queer representation in sports romance. As a queer person, and a writer of sports romance, this is obviously a subject near and dear to my heart. My series,