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Selling Books with GLBTQ Characters
Why can't you sell your "gay" book into the mainstream? Here are some thoughts on it.
Why can't you sell your "gay" book into the mainstream? Here are some thoughts on it.
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Lots of good stuff there. For slash, indeed, you might send the writers to Samhain, who apparently are specifically looking for such stories. And they take odd lengths--novellas in specific. A friend who has marketed three such novellas with them really likes the treatment there.
Oh, wonderful, thanks for telling me about Samhain--I'll be sure to check into them.
You have an amazing gift for cutting through the bullshit. I love your posts. You do a service.
You both gave excellent advice, and a much-appreciated insight into the publishing business. Thanks!
Am working on writing the best damned book I can.
Am working on writing the best damned book I can.
That's really all you can do! Good luck!
I was one of the people in the panel ("how much sex can you put in it?", heh) at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
con_txt and I did later think of another question... I have a book that's SF/F but the main plot is a gay romance, and the action plot is really secondary; is that worth trying to sell as SF/F? What I got out of the panel was "sell that book to Ellora's Cave or Loose Id, and write another one that's not a romance". But I was curious to ask, do successful authors ever dig up old books, edit them, and publish them once they're successful enough to get away with bending genres?
con_txt and I did later think of another question... I have a book that's SF/F but the main plot is a gay romance, and the action plot is really secondary; is that worth trying to sell as SF/F? What I got out of the panel was "sell that book to Ellora's Cave or Loose Id, and write another one that's not a romance". But I was curious to ask, do successful authors ever dig up old books, edit them, and publish them once they're successful enough to get away with bending genres?Hee, I remember you! ("As much as you want!")
do successful authors ever dig up old books, edit them, and publish them once they're successful enough to get away with bending genres?
Yes. The example that pops into my head is Susan Kearney's book The Challenge--it was the first book she wrote, and something like her 20th to get published.
You don't have to sell the book of your heart to an e-press. Try submitting it. You might get lucky--you never ever ever know.
do successful authors ever dig up old books, edit them, and publish them once they're successful enough to get away with bending genres?
Yes. The example that pops into my head is Susan Kearney's book The Challenge--it was the first book she wrote, and something like her 20th to get published.
You don't have to sell the book of your heart to an e-press. Try submitting it. You might get lucky--you never ever ever know.
Hehe, I sneak all that unhappy romance and gay sex stuff into a big fat historical novel. Maybe I can hide in well enough in the really intricate plot, amazing setting and engaging characters for the publisher to realise it's there only after I the contract is signed. *grin*
I sneak all that unhappy romance and gay sex stuff into a big fat historical novel.
And those tend to do pretty darn well, actually! So sneak away!
And those tend to do pretty darn well, actually! So sneak away!
FWIW, I've read online conversations where Ellora's Cave authors have said they do very well with the royalties from those e-books.
/looks at shiny, shiny statements about how genres are defined and that mysteries are "limited"--and quietly turns away.
:-)
/looks at shiny, shiny statements about how genres are defined and that mysteries are "limited"--and quietly turns away.
:-)
Feel free to post more about genre if you want to! Nothing is really as black and white as I'm implying, but it makes the point.
I think you raised a lot of great points. Thank you :)
Thanks! I'm glad it was interesting. :)
You know, I don't really get why people aren't uplifted about that advice. To me that says, if you know your genre well enough to push its boundaries from the inside, and you do it well, you can do pretty much anything you want. And that's awesome to hear. I think.
But then I'm in a really optimistic mood right now. ;)
But then I'm in a really optimistic mood right now. ;)
Hah. Well, you're right! I think mostly people get annoyed at the idea that it's work. The implication is that editors should approach the writers and beg for the privilege of publishing their masterful works of fiction. And that's just not how it works. (Except for with, like, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
katallison, who I would happily beg.)
katallison, who I would happily beg.)Have I mentioned lately that you rock? Even outside the GLBTQ question, once again you've made some excellent points most cogently. Huzzah, I say.
THANK YOU for pointing out that publishing is a business. I have said that and said that to people until I am fucking blue in the face, and no one wants to listen. All they want to do is blame publishers for not publishing their work because they are homophobic; and I am tired of explaining, "most publishers shy away from publishing queer work because they think they'll lose money. CONVINCE them it won't, and they will publish it."
Well, and 99% of everything sucks--even GLBTQ books.
On boundary pushing: I thought Anne Rice (love her or hate her) also did some incredible things in that arena. If I ever meet her, I'll thank her. Without her, without Hamilton, a lot of people wouldn't have made it into print. It's very interesting to me how you can follow a chain of interesting writers into a whole new subgenre.
"And most people just don't do that. A lot of people don't want the genre conventions changed, because they like reading books that are comfortable."
Hehe. Just the other day I was talking to somebody about the female detective formula. People expect certain things from a female detective novel. You can break down book from Stephanie Plum to Anita Blake and you will find the same basic things: female heroine must be funny, there must be a love triangle, the bad guys must be primarily male, etc...
"And most people just don't do that. A lot of people don't want the genre conventions changed, because they like reading books that are comfortable."
Hehe. Just the other day I was talking to somebody about the female detective formula. People expect certain things from a female detective novel. You can break down book from Stephanie Plum to Anita Blake and you will find the same basic things: female heroine must be funny, there must be a love triangle, the bad guys must be primarily male, etc...
Selling your GLBTQ sf novel as "sf with GLBTQ interest" is not homophobic--it expands the audience for your story, rather than contracting it.
Precisely the genre question I asked months ago. I'm planning on submitting to non-LBGT publishing houses first, because the audience is simply larger. It's a Contemporary Fantasy with some Gay principles.
Precisely the genre question I asked months ago. I'm planning on submitting to non-LBGT publishing houses first, because the audience is simply larger. It's a Contemporary Fantasy with some Gay principles.
Just because the house is larger does not mean necessarily your book will be a bigger hit.
You are a terrific source of wisdom about and insight into the writing/publishing industry. Phaedra, a friend of mine who is also a writer, sent me a link to one of your essays months ago. That essay led to me "friending" you. Every time you post an essay like this one, I send her another "thank you" for introducing me to your Live Journal.
You told me a while back that part of the problem with selling "gay romance for women" is that the bookshops simply don't know where to file it -- and now that I have a print book out, I'm seeing this up close and personal... The m/f print books from Loose Id go in the romance section, mine seems to go in Gay Interest if they order it at all. :-(
The "original slash" thing came out of trying to say that here were books that gave the same emotional kick as slash but with original characters. Calling them gay romance tended to get, "oh, I've read gay porn, and I'd rather read slash." It's been picked up by the romance readers who weren't familiar with fanfic, and some of them now seem to think "slash"="gay romance for women" without realising what the term actually means in its original environment. One or two of them are going to get a shock the first time they wander into a slash archive and stumble across the stuff that doesn't conform to romance genre conventions. There's a reason I don't tell my profic fans where to find my Blake's 7 slash stories. :->
The "original slash" thing came out of trying to say that here were books that gave the same emotional kick as slash but with original characters. Calling them gay romance tended to get, "oh, I've read gay porn, and I'd rather read slash." It's been picked up by the romance readers who weren't familiar with fanfic, and some of them now seem to think "slash"="gay romance for women" without realising what the term actually means in its original environment. One or two of them are going to get a shock the first time they wander into a slash archive and stumble across the stuff that doesn't conform to romance genre conventions. There's a reason I don't tell my profic fans where to find my Blake's 7 slash stories. :->
Wait, are you the Jules Jones who co-wrote The Sydicate series from Loose Id? Because I freaking LOVE LOVE LOVE that and was just going to post here to mention to Anna that I recently purchased some stuff off Loose Id and it's fantastic and then I thought, oh, not the forum, and oh crap I'm babbling.
Seriously, I am completely and utterly in love with Allard and Vaughn and now know bits of the stories off by heart. Honestly. I'm lame that way. But I've read each "book" about three times each and get warm fuzzies when I even think about these boys and their snarky awesome love. And scorchingly hot sex.
(omg sorry anna for jamming your journal with my fannish squeeing!)
Seriously, I am completely and utterly in love with Allard and Vaughn and now know bits of the stories off by heart. Honestly. I'm lame that way. But I've read each "book" about three times each and get warm fuzzies when I even think about these boys and their snarky awesome love. And scorchingly hot sex.
(omg sorry anna for jamming your journal with my fannish squeeing!)
He he, finally, the entry I've been waiting for. I've been trying to classify what I write, and the best I can come up with is "character-driven fantasy novels featuring alternative lifestyles" (which is on my business card) or just "queer fantasy," which I'm a bit more leery about. I have a couple LGBT books finished, one erotic and one not so much, and am waiting on a response from Ellora's Cave and may submit to Coyote Moon's erotic LGBT friendly division Silver Moon. There's also www.chippewapublishing.com who will take LGBT short stories and novels (I just got a contract from them for a gay fantasy short) but that's still a fledgling operation compared to E.C.
It strikes me, though, that even through a small press, if you're creative enough you can still sell LGBT books to a market. Depends on how many road trips you want to take during pride festivals and LGBT centers and such, but there's ways to get more than 500-1000 copies off only a small press, and there's always the hope someone bigger will pick it up someday. A niche market for sure, but it's still there for the determined writer.
I'm in the middle of a writing residency at Seton Hill, and one of the classes we had today concerned mixing genres; it depends on who you query as to what you market it as. Could my book be paranormal romance? If I send it to you, that's what I'd try and make it look like. To someone else, it might be just fantasy. If it gets published, there's got to be a creative way to market it to an audience who wouldn't normally read anything like it. (I know I've repeated things you said, but that's just because I believe strongly in it.)
But, darn, I'm not going to give up on what I write and say it's only worth being published online (though the money seems better that way) because like you said, somebody has to push the boundaries, and I'm trying my darndest to do it.
It strikes me, though, that even through a small press, if you're creative enough you can still sell LGBT books to a market. Depends on how many road trips you want to take during pride festivals and LGBT centers and such, but there's ways to get more than 500-1000 copies off only a small press, and there's always the hope someone bigger will pick it up someday. A niche market for sure, but it's still there for the determined writer.
I'm in the middle of a writing residency at Seton Hill, and one of the classes we had today concerned mixing genres; it depends on who you query as to what you market it as. Could my book be paranormal romance? If I send it to you, that's what I'd try and make it look like. To someone else, it might be just fantasy. If it gets published, there's got to be a creative way to market it to an audience who wouldn't normally read anything like it. (I know I've repeated things you said, but that's just because I believe strongly in it.)
But, darn, I'm not going to give up on what I write and say it's only worth being published online (though the money seems better that way) because like you said, somebody has to push the boundaries, and I'm trying my darndest to do it.
I'm confused, tcastleb. Why limit yourself with a tag like "character-driven fantasy novels featuring alternative lifestyles"? Why not just call it a "fantasy novel?" Whether or not you feature alternative lifestyles (and I do in just about every book) doesn't matter. If you do it WELL, nobody will notice anything other than that you've made real, believable people. That's the point. Same with "character driven." It's limiting and invites negativity without giving the book, as a whole, a chance.
Look at the Mercedes Lackey "Herald Mage" series. It was written like 20 years ago and nobody cared one whit that Vanyel (sp?) was gay. He was a great character and that's all that mattered. But it would have been a more difficult sell for her if she'd described the character's lifestyle and not given the actual BOOK a chance to be read.
Does that make sense? :)
Look at the Mercedes Lackey "Herald Mage" series. It was written like 20 years ago and nobody cared one whit that Vanyel (sp?) was gay. He was a great character and that's all that mattered. But it would have been a more difficult sell for her if she'd described the character's lifestyle and not given the actual BOOK a chance to be read.
Does that make sense? :)
In print publishing, too, there's a niche market for gay romance. I think, though, that any of these "original slash" writers would probably want to study the gay romance genre before submitting: it has rules too. Gay Romance is lighthearted, more or less, -- no, I mean it has a lot of humor running through it, is usually deeply set in the gay community for at least part of the story, and has a happy ending. The dimensions of angst are different -- gay romances are really worried about appearance, coolness, getting ahead in conventional ways.
There is a difference in how sex writing is approached in Gay Romance v. "original slash." (it's a stupid title, I think, but we're probably stuck with it, and it's clearly its own genre with its own following and its own conventions: it reads quite differently from the sort of romantic writing you find on the gay authors' archives, and from the sort of writing you find in the gay mens' shelves in the bookstore)I wish I could describe the difference. But you'd know which genre you were reading if you picked up just a couple of paragraphs of sex writing.
There's another genre of Heavy Gay Relationship books which usually ends quite ambivalently, and often disastrously. They're shelved in the bookstore on the same shelves as the gay romances, but you can tell which is which: the gay romances come packaged in covers that look like Old Navy ads, featuring a well-dressed (or exquisitely swimsuited) handsome young man, or two of them. The heavy relationship books have arty covers, not always gloomy, but always with important typography (as opposed to the romping typography of the gay romances).
Only some gay romances are put out by specialty houses (Alyson, Gay Men's Press, etc). Others are put out by mainstream houses in mainstream light fiction imprints, but they get these particular covers.
Somebody who knows about the small-but-not-too-small publishers should explain how they function.
There is a difference in how sex writing is approached in Gay Romance v. "original slash." (it's a stupid title, I think, but we're probably stuck with it, and it's clearly its own genre with its own following and its own conventions: it reads quite differently from the sort of romantic writing you find on the gay authors' archives, and from the sort of writing you find in the gay mens' shelves in the bookstore)I wish I could describe the difference. But you'd know which genre you were reading if you picked up just a couple of paragraphs of sex writing.
There's another genre of Heavy Gay Relationship books which usually ends quite ambivalently, and often disastrously. They're shelved in the bookstore on the same shelves as the gay romances, but you can tell which is which: the gay romances come packaged in covers that look like Old Navy ads, featuring a well-dressed (or exquisitely swimsuited) handsome young man, or two of them. The heavy relationship books have arty covers, not always gloomy, but always with important typography (as opposed to the romping typography of the gay romances).
Only some gay romances are put out by specialty houses (Alyson, Gay Men's Press, etc). Others are put out by mainstream houses in mainstream light fiction imprints, but they get these particular covers.
Somebody who knows about the small-but-not-too-small publishers should explain how they function.
Kensington publishes a lot of gay romances.
Romentics only publishes gay romances.
Seventh Window publishes them, too. (They did the historical THE PRICE OF TEMPTATION, for instance, with a fun cover www.priceoftemptation.com.)
Gay Men's Press is no more, FWIW.
Romentics only publishes gay romances.
Seventh Window publishes them, too. (They did the historical THE PRICE OF TEMPTATION, for instance, with a fun cover www.priceoftemptation.com.)
Gay Men's Press is no more, FWIW.
Putting the Queer back into Query... since... for a while now.
Great Essay.
Great Essay.
Word and word and word again. Because everything you said is spot on.
t's just a larger minority than you're used to, which is why it doesn't feel like a minority - I always laugh when I hear things like "but there are so many of us" - yeah, but in the business world of a major publisher - a couple of thousand - not so much.
I said this to you Saturday and I'll say it again - kudos for telling the unvarnished truth. It may not be what people want to hear, but reality is what it is.
Write the best damned book you can.
Be professional.
Don't be an idiot.
A-freakin'-men.
Oh, and yeah - I give thanks every day to folks like Laurell Hamilton, Tanya Huff, Barbara Hambly and Charlaine Harris, who broke ground so I didn't have to.
t's just a larger minority than you're used to, which is why it doesn't feel like a minority - I always laugh when I hear things like "but there are so many of us" - yeah, but in the business world of a major publisher - a couple of thousand - not so much.
I said this to you Saturday and I'll say it again - kudos for telling the unvarnished truth. It may not be what people want to hear, but reality is what it is.
Write the best damned book you can.
Be professional.
Don't be an idiot.
A-freakin'-men.
Oh, and yeah - I give thanks every day to folks like Laurell Hamilton, Tanya Huff, Barbara Hambly and Charlaine Harris, who broke ground so I didn't have to.
As alway, Anna, this is a great post. I'll admit to being a reader who usually prefers to stay within the confines of the HEA in a romance. I once picked up a romance that had a contemporary spin on the Beauty/Beast tale. I flipped to the end (~~sigh~~, yes I do that) and found out the heroine dies. I quickly put the book back. No matter how well written it might have been, or how much I like the premise of the tale, that ending blew it for me, and I passed on buying it. I don't mind more ambiguous or tragic endings in other genres, but always prefer the HEA in the romance I read. As you say, it's a more constrained genre.
I write for an e-publisher (Changeling Press) and while some folks may look down on it as not "real" writing, I can honestly say it has been a great experience for me.
I've had the chance to write the stories I want to write, and have received a lot of good advice, encouragement and good natured pushing to improve my craft and stretch myself as an author.
I've had the chance to write the stories I want to write, and have received a lot of good advice, encouragement and good natured pushing to improve my craft and stretch myself as an author.
Awesome post, Anna. I agree with most everything you've said. :)
I do have a question, though.
"And romance novels, the ones stocked in the romance section of your bookstore, pretty much have to have (a) a heterosexual couple in the foreground and (b) a happy ending."
Is this general observation, or does this affect the guidelines of Tor's Paranormal Romance line?
Thanks :)
I do have a question, though.
"And romance novels, the ones stocked in the romance section of your bookstore, pretty much have to have (a) a heterosexual couple in the foreground and (b) a happy ending."
Is this general observation, or does this affect the guidelines of Tor's Paranormal Romance line?
Thanks :)
A book which turned out to have a much larger readership than expected: The Bridges of Madison County. It ends with the two lovers having their memories of each other -- but not having to live with each other. Apparently, there were many people for whom "They lived together ever after" wasn't their kind of happy ending.
I attended the RT convention in Daytona Beach last month. While there I was tracked down by a staff member of one of the NY publishing houses and questioned about my M/M erotic romances, specifially, A BIT OF ROUGH, a 2005 Passionate Plume Finalist for the RWA erotic chapter. This person loved M/M stories, understood their appeal to staright women and was actively seeking supporting facts and numbers to show her CEO that the next big market was going to be M/M erotic romances and that they should get on it. I call my novels Manlove. It bridges the space between gay fiction (written for men mostly by men) and slash (written mostly by ametuers-some very good, some not so good). Staright women can walk into a store and ask for a 'manlove' romance without feeling as uncomfortable as they might feel asking for gay fiction. It's all about preception and what people are at ease with. I think there will be a market for it in the near future in all genres. At least I hope so, became I LOVE writing it.
Laura Baumbach
http://www.laurabaumbach.com
Laura Baumbach
http://www.laurabaumbach.com
"and most of the people got really annoyed"
Did they? I'm sorry that was your impression, for I thought the audience was on the edge of their seats listening to you folks. I can't speak for anyone else, but I wasn't annoyed by your answers; I was interested in what you had to say on the topic. And deeply grateful that you'd take the time to talk with us.
"It's entirely possible that someone will figure out how to sell 'Category Romance With Excitingly Downbeat Endings!' as a hot new genre or subgenre, but the hitch is: this trick is REALLY, REALLY HARD."
And there, I think, is the point of agreement between you and the audience members that were pressing you on this topic (which includes me): We all agree that it's really, really hard to establish a new professional subgenre. It must have been hell for the editors who first had to struggle with the problem of how to market paranormal romances. I'd love to know how they managed that trick.
I think that there are enough people looking in the right direction at gay love stories at the moment - the figures for the number of slash and yaoi stories on the Web are quite startling. The trouble is, these readers are mainly looking in the direction of fan fiction. I suspect there's a chicken-and-the-egg problem here - are they looking in the direction of fan fiction because that's what they want or because they can't find professionally published gay love stories? I do know that, over and over and over, I've had the experience of slashers dragging me into bookstores - literally or through cyberspace recommendations - and telling me what their favorite pro books are, simultaneously bemoaning that more books like this aren't published.
My personal suspicion, though, is that the romance publishers are going to lag behind in this area, simply because, as has been pointed out in this thread, a lot of original slash stories break romance conventions. (Some of them, for example, aren't primarily about love.) And, of course, many of them break GLBT fiction/erotica conventions. (Not enough detailed body descriptions, for example.) And there's just too much erotic content in some of them for them to pass the mainstream SF/F test - at least, if the author wants them to be published in a relatively unexpurgated manner. So which publishers will provide the breakthrough I'm just not sure about. I do think that, sooner or later, the professional breakthrough will have to happen; this subgenre has been gaining readers by leaps and bounds during the past decade.
"If you think about it, sf/f, mystery, historicals, etc., are not genres in which the genre conventions are about the characters and their interactions."
Indeed, but it's surprising how often those conventions are broken.
I'm a fan of friendship fiction, and, unless I'm in the juvenile section of the library, I have to read between the lines of blurbs to find the genre books that will interest me. (I'm somewhat puzzled why it's assumed by publishers that children will be interested in genre friendship fiction but that adults won't be.) However, I have dozens of fantasy books on my shelves in which friendship plays a central role in the story. And I don't think my taste as a fantasy reader is that far off the mark from mainstream; otherwise, I wouldn't be able to go through lists of best fantasy books and find most of those books on my shelves.
Given fan fiction writers' tendency to zero in on relationships (all relationships, not just romantic ones), I rather suspect that there's more interest by SF/F readers in character relationships than blurb writers usually assume. Certainly the rise of paranormal romance suggests that there are a goodly number of readers out there who like both SF/F and relationships. Not all SF/F readers, of course, but perhaps a sizeable enough minority that, like those fat fantasy novel fans, they could be worth a publisher's time to target?
But that's a matter, really, for the publicity department rather than the editorial department. I used to work in publishing, and I know how many books live or die by how they're publicized.
This has turned into feedback rather than the thank-you note it was intended to be. That's a credit to the manner in which your post raises interesting questions.
Did they? I'm sorry that was your impression, for I thought the audience was on the edge of their seats listening to you folks. I can't speak for anyone else, but I wasn't annoyed by your answers; I was interested in what you had to say on the topic. And deeply grateful that you'd take the time to talk with us.
"It's entirely possible that someone will figure out how to sell 'Category Romance With Excitingly Downbeat Endings!' as a hot new genre or subgenre, but the hitch is: this trick is REALLY, REALLY HARD."
And there, I think, is the point of agreement between you and the audience members that were pressing you on this topic (which includes me): We all agree that it's really, really hard to establish a new professional subgenre. It must have been hell for the editors who first had to struggle with the problem of how to market paranormal romances. I'd love to know how they managed that trick.
I think that there are enough people looking in the right direction at gay love stories at the moment - the figures for the number of slash and yaoi stories on the Web are quite startling. The trouble is, these readers are mainly looking in the direction of fan fiction. I suspect there's a chicken-and-the-egg problem here - are they looking in the direction of fan fiction because that's what they want or because they can't find professionally published gay love stories? I do know that, over and over and over, I've had the experience of slashers dragging me into bookstores - literally or through cyberspace recommendations - and telling me what their favorite pro books are, simultaneously bemoaning that more books like this aren't published.
My personal suspicion, though, is that the romance publishers are going to lag behind in this area, simply because, as has been pointed out in this thread, a lot of original slash stories break romance conventions. (Some of them, for example, aren't primarily about love.) And, of course, many of them break GLBT fiction/erotica conventions. (Not enough detailed body descriptions, for example.) And there's just too much erotic content in some of them for them to pass the mainstream SF/F test - at least, if the author wants them to be published in a relatively unexpurgated manner. So which publishers will provide the breakthrough I'm just not sure about. I do think that, sooner or later, the professional breakthrough will have to happen; this subgenre has been gaining readers by leaps and bounds during the past decade.
"If you think about it, sf/f, mystery, historicals, etc., are not genres in which the genre conventions are about the characters and their interactions."
Indeed, but it's surprising how often those conventions are broken.
I'm a fan of friendship fiction, and, unless I'm in the juvenile section of the library, I have to read between the lines of blurbs to find the genre books that will interest me. (I'm somewhat puzzled why it's assumed by publishers that children will be interested in genre friendship fiction but that adults won't be.) However, I have dozens of fantasy books on my shelves in which friendship plays a central role in the story. And I don't think my taste as a fantasy reader is that far off the mark from mainstream; otherwise, I wouldn't be able to go through lists of best fantasy books and find most of those books on my shelves.
Given fan fiction writers' tendency to zero in on relationships (all relationships, not just romantic ones), I rather suspect that there's more interest by SF/F readers in character relationships than blurb writers usually assume. Certainly the rise of paranormal romance suggests that there are a goodly number of readers out there who like both SF/F and relationships. Not all SF/F readers, of course, but perhaps a sizeable enough minority that, like those fat fantasy novel fans, they could be worth a publisher's time to target?
But that's a matter, really, for the publicity department rather than the editorial department. I used to work in publishing, and I know how many books live or die by how they're publicized.
This has turned into feedback rather than the thank-you note it was intended to be. That's a credit to the manner in which your post raises interesting questions.
However, I have dozens of fantasy books on my shelves in which friendship plays a central role in the story.
Could you recommend some, please? Because I like some good friendship stories as well, preferably not YA angst, though. :)
Could you recommend some, please? Because I like some good friendship stories as well, preferably not YA angst, though. :)
All very reassuring -- thanks for posting. I'm getting ready to start querying an urban fantasy mystery in which the hero is bisexual, and my big worry was that the gay presses would be antsy that he has a brief relationship with a woman early on while the rest would be bothered by his relationship with a younger man later in the story. But I think if I focus on the mystery and the worldbuilding in the background, then the relationships (both of which tie into the puzzle) will just be a 'by the way...' in the query.
And if nothing else I love the world I've created, I'm still writing more mysteries in it, and my friends seem to like what they've seen too.
And if nothing else I love the world I've created, I'm still writing more mysteries in it, and my friends seem to like what they've seen too.
I think you are right, some gay presses would have a problem with the bisexual events in the book. Bisexuality is a tremendous issue with many gay and lesbian folk because it involves the perceived deception and betrayal of the same-sex partner.
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