alg: (Default)
anna genoese ([personal profile] alg) wrote2006-06-21 04:07 pm

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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.

[identity profile] sartorias.livejournal.com 2006-06-21 08:34 pm (UTC)(link)
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.

[identity profile] alg.livejournal.com 2006-06-21 08:46 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, wonderful, thanks for telling me about Samhain--I'll be sure to check into them.

[identity profile] technosage.livejournal.com 2006-06-22 12:03 am (UTC)(link)
Loose Id is also doing lots of them.

[identity profile] b-sheridan.livejournal.com 2006-06-22 01:09 am (UTC)(link)
Samhain also takes "odd" smexy yaoi-like stories in general that do not contain romance or happy endings.


[identity profile] aberrantvirtue.livejournal.com 2006-06-21 09:02 pm (UTC)(link)
I just wanted to say, so OT'ly that I love your icon. (Would it be okay if I stole the idea?)

[identity profile] sartorias.livejournal.com 2006-06-21 10:15 pm (UTC)(link)
I didn't make it--someone made it in a community for one of my books (it's a quote)--but I have no objection!

[identity profile] m-barnette.livejournal.com 2006-06-21 09:49 pm (UTC)(link)
Samhain isn't the only publisher out there that takes 'slash' fiction, there are actually lots of them.

Coyote Moon Publications, http://www.coyotemoonpublications.com, one of my publishers takes GLBT fiction and actively looks for stories with openly gay characters. They accept stories and novels in most genres (contemporary romance is one thing I know they don't accept) and they don't require erotic content or that the story even be a romance. All of my stories and novels with them are GLBT, as is their first erotica release. They take works from about 5000 words up. Coyote Moon also takes books directly to print that are over a certain word count with ebook and print released pretty much simultaneously. They also have one of the best author friendly contracts out there, it's based on the EPIC model contract, and they have some of the best cover art in small press, IMO.

I have friends with both Samhain and Loose-id http://loose-id.net and I hear good things about both publishers.

One of the bigger names in GLBT is Torquere Press but I don't know much about them really though people I've chatted with have books with them.

I like epublishing because in many of cases the author has a lot more input on things like book covers and some places pay monthly royalties, rather than quarterly to semi-annual as most publishers do.

[identity profile] crazywritinfool.livejournal.com 2006-06-21 11:21 pm (UTC)(link)
Changeling Press (http://changelingpress.com/) also publishes some very nice M/M romance, including my Dark Callings (http://changelingpress.com/product.php?&upt=book&ubid=21) series. In spite of recent rumors, they're very much alive and well. And they're also very nice to work for, and even writing in a mid-selling genre with them, the royalties are decent--actually for e-pub they're damn good.

I'm a little weirded out by the "original slash" term, too, though I do get what it means and why it has come into usage. My own books came out of my love of writing slash fic, and I wanted to write something that gave me that same kind of emotional punch.

Thanks for the extensive info--I've been following this market, though rather casually, and the growth over the past couple of years has been both gratifying and fascinating.

[identity profile] m-barnette.livejournal.com 2006-06-22 10:46 pm (UTC)(link)
The only thing about Changeling is they have a very low word count cap which means they don't take anything longer than novellas. Great if that's what you write, not so great if you mostly write longer work.

[identity profile] crazywritinfool.livejournal.com 2006-06-22 10:55 pm (UTC)(link)
True about the word count, although I rather like it, myself, because I make more $$/word on the shorter stories than I have on longer e-published works. The cutoff is about 28K, which isn't horribly low, but yeah, not novel-length. It's possible, too, to break up a novel-length work into pieces and publish them in serial form, if you're so inclined and that works for the piece, and then you've got a win-win.

[identity profile] m-barnette.livejournal.com 2006-06-23 12:20 am (UTC)(link)
I've got a series of shorter works running at one publisher already, and the thought of breaking up a book like this is mind numbing to me when it's a proposed 5 book series. It would take a months to get a book into release one chapter at a time, much less 5 entire novels. And honestly, my readers would absolutely murder me if I serialize anything else.

Authors rule #1 in small press: Your readers are your lifesblood, keep them happy or be very unhappy when sales drop like a stone

For me 28k is very short since my average word count runs 75k to 100k. My plots tend to be a bit more complicated than boy meets boy, and I tend to bend genres. My last one, the 105k novel was mystery/suspense with paranormal and psychic elements, and it was about a Visual Kei band and took place entirely in Japan.

The research for that one was brutal.