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Showing results for tags 'publishing'.
Found 4 results
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Twenty-five years ago, when I began writing queer SF, there were over a dozen gay bookstores in the United States... ...if you didn't find what you were looking for on the shelves, you could learn about new books in the pages of Christopher Street or The Advocate or the gay newspapers that every major city in the United States supported. ...one would think homophobia did not exist in those days. But it did: bookstores were vandalized, patrons were thankful for paper bags hiding the books they bought, and if you were not a young white male who moved to San Francisco or New York City, you likely found a distance between yourself and the characters in the books. Nowadays, while independent bookstores are recovering, gay bookstores are all but extinct. So too the daily newspapers, the print literary magazines, where you could discover a good book. ...in 1986 a man in a small town in a conservative state might happen upon a book in the library or if he traveled to a large city, but now he can purchase any book from Amazon.com with the confidence of anonymity. And how many choices he has! I'll mention the elephant in the room: no, you do not have to be a gay cis-gendered man to be a successful author of gay fiction. This has never been an issue. Kushner considered herself straight when she wrote Swordspoint. Mary Renault had a tremendous following for her historical novels (and likely still does). Annie Proulx and 1997's "Brokeback Mountain" . . . need I say more? Do not think either your gender or sexuality limits your writing. Gay anthologies are rare and most are romance-themed because that reaches, arguably, the most readers, who also do not happen to necessarily be gay men. The genre of m/m fiction has become a popular one, and its target audience is not gay men but female readers, many of whom identify as heterosexual. General gay fiction novels remain a hard sell. Social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, is full of authors trying to promote their own books. Rather than shout into the abyss an Amazon.com link, start a meaningful dialogue about gay life that your book touches upon. ...do you fret about your book having too much erotic content? Obviously among the small presses, some are more tolerant of sex scenes than others. But I don't know any gay man who has ever said, "Whoa, there is a penis in this book and I found I had to stop reading." Are you worried that you'll be pigeonholed? Don't be. I can give you the names of dozens of acclaimed authors (Laird Barron, Kelly Link, Holly Black, Paul Tremblay) who wrote the occasional gay-themed story; ...ask yourself why you are writing a gay-themed story... because I want to write a tale where I can see myself as the protagonist, where gay men can have adventures, find love as well as heartache. Too often gay people are confronted with negative representations in media and entertainment. You have the opportunity to change that depiction, and today is as good as any other day to try. Extracts from the blog by Steve Berman - Strange Horizons http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/columns/some-advice-from-a-gay-publisher-on-writing-gay/
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- gay writing
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Hi, Not sure if anyone can help, but i've recently finished drafting a book, and spent a long while editing and honing, and am keen now to share it with a publisher and see if there is any interest. Only thing is, i'm not sure where best to start. It seems that gay fiction publishers are on the decline at the moment, especially in the UK (and its very much a UK based story so I think that is definitely the preference) Does anyone have any views on this? Or if there is anyone with more experience on working with publishers / knowing what they'd expect, i'd really appreciate some input on whether the story / writing quality etc is likely to be up to standard / who I might best approach? If anyone can help out, please get in touch, Cheers, Stuart
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Hi all, I've recently joined GA and so far I'm loving the community. I have a question that I think might spark some interesting discussion: I've had success in the past in selling stories to publishing houses that specialize in gay-friendly content, but I have tried unsuccessfully to get a larger company to show interest in my latest novel, which is science fiction-oriented but in which the characters are gay men. It is not romance, and their sexual orientation is not the focus of the story, but nevertheless I keep butting my head against this invisible wall of what 'mainstream' literature should be, i.e., straight characters or if someone is gay, then they better be supporting characters at most. What has been your experience on this so far?
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In the lead up to what is already being called, in our household, The Big Move, I am focusing on editing and preparing manuscripts, rather than writing. This is because it is hard to write when you feel guilty for not packing your life into boxes, and secondly because whilst Cowboy Summer waits for covers and one last read-through, I have no finished the 17 tracks of the American Songbook. Yes people, I said 17 tracks. There are two tracks "Sandbar" and "Marshallville" which will only be available on the deluxe album version (both digital and print). Current word counts look to be around 150,000 which is going to make this a pretty hefty tome probably some 450-500 pages long. Should keep you busy! we are hoping for a release date this side of the end of May, if all goes to plan, and I'll let you know how things progress. The contents of the 'album' stands thus: 1 - All Over The Road All Over The Road - Easton Corbin 2 - Great-Grandaddy's Gun Grandaddy's Gun - Blake Shelton 3 - Home Grown American Beautiful - The Henningsens 4 - Nothin' Town This Nothin' Town - Jason Aldean 5 - Country Girl Fresh Off The Farm The Farm Inc. 6 - The Boy Who Was Summer Sunny and 75 - Joe Nichols 19 You+Me - Dan + Shay 7 - Tailgate Hangout Ready, Set, Roll - Chase Rice That's My Kind of Night - Luke Bryan 8 - Payback's a Blast Get Even - Brad Paisley 9 - Bright Thunder Blown Away - Carrie Underwood 10 - Drunk Last Night Drunk Last Night - Eli Young Band 11 - Our Song Play it Again - Luke Bryan 12 - Worth the Drive See You Tonight - Scotty McCreery 13 - Instantly State of Grace - Taylor Swift Crickets - Joe Nichols 14 - Ladies' Man God Made Girls - RaeLynn 15 - Lonely at the Top Hope You Get Lonely Tonight - Cole Swindell 16 - Sandbar (Deluxe Album Version) Wish I Had A Boat - Tyler Farr 17 - Marshallville (Deluxe Album Version) Water Tower - Jason Aldean
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- short stories
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