(no subject)

[alg]

Selling Books with GLBTQ Characters

Why can't you sell your "gay" book into the mainstream? Here are some thoughts on it.

Comments

[lauralb.livejournal.com]

I write M/M erotic romances. I recieve fan mail from both gay men and straight women. My work is on the shelves at A Differnt Light, LA biggest gay book store, and avidly purchased by both genders on line from publishers, Amazon and B&N. I call what I write 'manlove' because it had more emotional romanctic elements than traditional gay fiction does, (I also write for gay online sites, I know the difference) and is focused on the male/male relationship as the main characters. The audience is out there in both the gay and romance markets.

[mroctober.livejournal.com]

May I ask who is your publisher? Mainstream press? Gay press?

small press publisher

[lauralb.livejournal.com]

Sybaritic Press, an LA based small press. I'll be doing a book signing in WeHo in September, during the WeHo Book Fair. Sybpress will have a booth there. I believe they are also planning a get together with other like-minded authors in the area and seeing about a booksigning at A Different Light. Nothing is firm at this point though.

Re: small press publisher

[mroctober.livejournal.com]

Is Sybaritic a POD press? I don't recognize it. I wonder if Giovanni's Room has copies.

Re: small press publisher

[lauralb.livejournal.com]

Small press. Check them out on the web. sybpress.com. They pay a small advance to established authors (by contact negotiation) and quarterly royalties. They go through Ingrams and my books with them are on the shelves in B&N. Does that make them POD?

Re: small press publisher

[mroctober.livejournal.com]

Nope, not POD, which is a good thing to most booksellers.

The Manlove market, as you refer to it, is one that perplexes me. It would certainly be good for my forthcoming novel if female readers learned of it. I simply have no idea how to tap into it. Or if they would find my style alluring/entertaining.

Re: small press publisher

[lauralb.livejournal.com]

join some of the romance online lists. check out the reviews sites and run banners there. Run cover ads on the sites and do intereviews with them.

Re: small press publisher

[mroctober.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tip! And I'm gonna friend you as well so it will make future conversations easier.

Re: small press publisher

[julesjones]

Yahoogroup for writers and fans of m/m:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/homopromo/

Also worth sending information to places like Forbidden Fruit:
http://www.forbiddenfruitzine.com/

I can probably think of more places when it's not quarter to midnight here...

GLBT romance venues

[duskpeterson.livejournal.com]

While not wanting to turn this into a pimp fest, there are so many folks posting here whom I know from the Erotic Romance Writers Forum that I'll mention that as another major source of information on romance, erotic romance, and erotica, especially GLBT. One of the forum's founders is the editor of Forbidden Fruit, and much of the homopromo crowd hang out there as well.

Oh, and five of us were sitting in the front row at alg's talk at Con-txt. :)

http://veinglory.8.forumer.com/index.php

Some of the members of ERWF went on to organize this group:

Erotic Romance Writers International
http://www.erwintl.com/

If you prefer an e-mail list, Forbidden Fruit runs one:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/slashandhack/

And this might be of help to you:

http://www.romancewiki.com/GLBT

And here's a place where there's a crossover between erotic romance writers and erotica writers, many of whom produce GLBT stories.

http://eroticauthorsassociation.com/

In all of the above places, authors can promote their work; you might also enjoy getting to know writers working in this field. I'm sure they'd enjoy getting to know you.

You're going to see the same names over and over at most of these groups, so I'd better emphasize: This is only a small portion of the GLBT romance crowd. There are plenty of other GLBT romance writers out there who just don't happen to be hanging out at these particular venues. However, I don't know of any other GLBT romance venues that are as active as these are.

POD or not

[mariongropen.livejournal.com]

I know that this is a digression, but since it does seem to be in the background of several comments, and since I see far too many broken hearts over some of these issues, please pardon a brief word on the issue.

POD is a printing method. LOTS of publishers use it, usually to keep backlist in print, to produce ARCs, and other low-volume, low-overhead items.

There are a zillion permutations on the subsidy press/vanity press model. Some of them have arrogated the term POD publishing to themselves, thus annoying the tar out of the small trade pb houses that are using POD printing in the search to make tiny niches pay.

The subsidy presses using digital printing and offering low set-up costs now bring out tens of thousands of titles per year. The average sales per title are between 50 and 100 copies, including those sold to the authors themselves.

Some POD publishers leave writers confused about much of the following:
--Being listed by B&N, etc. is trivial, for anyone. Get an ISBN, record the release of the associated book, and it's done.
--Getting onto the store shelves is an ENTIRELY different game.
--ISBNs belong to the entity that buys them from Bowker. They cannot be resold. This matters in all kinds of ways (liability, returns, re-orders, marketing momentum, . . . .)
--The rights to the words in a book are a very different thing from the rights to the design. If you move your book to a different subsidy, self or traditional publishing option, you can't take the ISBN or the design with you, so you generally lose the momentum you have built.

I hope this starts some interesting thoughts in various folks' minds.

Re: POD or not

[duskpeterson.livejournal.com]

"POD is a printing method."

You said what I was about to say, and it's not only the small presses that are using print on demand. My father tells me that Oxford University Press has reprinted one of his bibliographies through POD.

Re: POD or not

[mariongropen.livejournal.com]

Very true. And they're not the only one by a very long shot. It's quite common in the tpb world.