I’m Publishing A Superhero Harem Novel

Last week I wrote a blog post about how most of the books on Amazon’s superhero book bestseller lists aren’t superhero books. Most are books in the genres of LitRPG, urban fantasy, space opera, and harem.

This is not a new phenomenon, and it’s one I’ve been monitoring for quite some time. Harem fiction, in particular, is a genre that has exploded in popularity over the past few years.

A harem book, in case you don’t know, is one where the male main character has romantic relationships with several different women. Its mirror image is a reverse harem, where a female main character has romantic relationships with several different men.

In both harems and reverse harems, the physical relationships among the characters can range from being so chaste that a nun wouldn’t raise an eyebrow at them to sexual behavior so raunchy it would blow the nun’s eyebrows clean off.

Harem novels are so popular on Amazon’s superhero bestseller lists that I’ve decided to write one. As the old saying goes, if you can’t beat them, join them. (Which is, I suppose, exactly what a woman would say when joining an already established harem.)

Despite a harem being central to my latest book’s plot, like all my other novels, this one involves superheroes. Other than that, I don’t want to say too much about the plot at the risk of spoiling it. All I’ll say for now is that it’s set in a different fictional universe than my existing superhero books.

Writing a harem book is not a recent decision. I came up with the idea for the book ages ago, hired an artist to create the cover, and have been sitting on the cover for well over a year (though I did share it with the patrons of my Patreon page). It may be my favorite of all my book’s covers. It’s the first hand-drawn cover I’ve ever commissioned; all my prior covers have been photo-manipulations.

While my book is not as explicit as others I’ve read in the harem genre, it’s definitely not squeaky clean like my prior books (mostly) are. For that reason, I seriously considered releasing the book under a pen name before I rejected the idea. I’ve spent years building a fan base, and don’t want to hide a new book from the people who enjoy my work the most.

I’m still working on the harem book, but I hope to release it late next month.

Keep your fingers crossed for me and my re-writing/editing speed.