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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.

Comments

[tcastleb.livejournal.com]

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.

[huntergal.livejournal.com]

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? :)

[1st-folio.livejournal.com]

Basically exactly what casacorona said, and that's damn good advice.

C, following it