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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

[duskpeterson.livejournal.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.

[aulus-poliutos.livejournal.com]

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. :)

[duskpeterson.livejournal.com]

Well, darn, and I just packed my books away in preparation for a move. However, I can simply refer you over to my historical fantasy recommendations list, because every single one of those titles has a central friendship in it.

http://duskpeterson.com/historicalfantasy/#recommended

I'd recommended starting with Guy Gavriel Kay's novels, and I also recommend the achingly bittersweet friendship between Morgon and Deth in Patricia A. McKillip's Riddle-Master trilogy. (McKillip qualifies as YA angst, since the trilogy was originally published for young adults, but it's am-I-going-to-be-murdered-today angst, not what-do-I-do-with-my-hair angst.)

If you haven't read these already, that is. Like I said before, my fantasy tastes are frighteningly mainstream.

[aulus-poliutos.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

I know the books of Guy Gavriel Kay, GRR Martin and some others on the list, and it's Rosemary Sutcliff's 'fault' that I write historical fiction. :)

But there are also new titles to discover.

Friendship is a theme that plays a role in my NiPs as well.