Gay Book Publishing Todayby
Bert Herrman
Part
1
(Finding a Publisher)Is there not a literate gay or lesbian that does not have the definitive novel inside somewhere or the information for a non-fiction title that will sell millions? Actually the writing of a book is a momentous task, much less getting it published. Maintaining continuity and style for over 100 pages is not easy, nor is maintaining reader interest. But in a day of internet, play stations and television, probably less than one in ten of books completed goes to publication and probably half of these end up losing money for the author and publisher.
If you are not a celebrity or an established author, forget selling a book before it is completed. Publishers are much too smart to put time or money into a book that may not happen. If you are a new writer, you are well advised to cut your teeth on writing small pieces and selling them to anthologies. You won’t see a lot of money, but you will get an idea of what sells and gain a reputation. Before you begin writing, see what is selling out there. You are not likely to create a new genre. Read books in your genre to see how other authors do it. Creativity is your own, but the disciplines of writing apply to everyone.
Consider taking a writing course at a local university. These writing courses usually involve students reading each other’s material and critiquing it under the guidance of a knowledgeable instructor. If there are weaknesses in your writing technique, learn it early. If you have potential as a writer, the teacher and other students will encourage you. You may have wonderful things to say, but writing is a discipline. Without mastering the discipline, you have no future as a writer.
Once your book is finished, get professional editing. No matter who you are, the first draft of your first book will get ripped to shreds by your first professional editor. If it does not, then the person you chose was not a professional editor. If you can pull yourself together after this and follow the guidance of multiple editors you have a chance as an author. If you cannot, you don’t have the stuff to be an author. Don’t be thin skinned or defensive: rewrite, rewrite and rewrite. Many rewritings later your book may be ready for publication. There are tons of garbage out there floating around and being called manuscripts, few are written tightly enough to ever see print. Publishers today are not willing to do your major editing for you.
While finding a publisher is not easy, finding good books to publish is even tougher. Go to your local book store to the shelf where you would expect your book to be shelved when published, and consider every publisher whose books are on that shelf. Multiple bookstores will give you even more input.
Major publishers (Simon and Schuster, Harper, Random House, etc.) buy mostly from book agents. Successful book agents have established reputations for knowing what books are salable, having them edited at least one more time and bringing them to the right publisher. Agents save publishers tremendous time sifting through garbage. Agents stake their reputation on the quality of every manuscript they turn in. An agent cannot afford to compromise that reputation. Finding a good book agent that will handle your work is not easy. Most agents want to see a track record or be bowled over by the quality of your writing. I cannot offer any recommendations for finding an agent, short of publishing a best-seller first. Perhaps you can do it on your good looks or sex appeal.
The second tier of publishers doesn’t have the ability to rely solely on book agents. These you approach with query letters. Call first and ask the secretary if they accept queries by email. If so, this can save you a lot of work. Feel free to approach several publishers at once with your query, but don’t send out actual manuscripts to more than one at a time without their knowledge and permission.
A query letter includes a cover letter explaining your book (don’t sell too hard), a page on your background as a writer and expert in what you are writing about, a sample of the writing from your book and a table of contents or plot summary. All items on the query need to be written well. If you send the query by snail mail, enclose a stamped return envelope if you wish it returned. Include your email address; most publishers today prefer to reply to you in this fashion. Expect most queries to be rejected. The publisher may not be interested in what you are offering at the present time. If the publisher comes back with more than a perfunctory dismissal, consider yourself privileged and read well what the publisher has to say. Do not send a publisher a query letter on a book with no similarity to anything they have published recently. Publishers work from their strengths. Your query letter should also reflect your professionalism as a writer. Even a likely strong manuscript will be turned down if the publisher detects you will be a pain in the butt to work with! Consider putting your query letter through an editor too.
Consider small gay publishers; but if you don’t see they have come out with a book in the last five years, assume they are dead. Avoid publishers that only publish their own work. Also realize that a small publisher many accept your book but not survive long enough to get it out.
There are certain good-size houses that are currently doing well with gay/lesbian books. Kensington has been having great success with well-written light-as-fluff novels and is branching into erotica. Contact John Scognnamiglio from Kensington Books at jscognnamiglio@kensingtonbooks.com. Haworth Press is handling well-written novels and non-fiction. Check out their website at http://www.haworthpressinc.com
Be careful going with academic publishers and publishers who do not normally carry gay books; they often cannot reach your market. Academic publishers often give small discounts to stores and no extra discounts to wholesalers. Authors who go with these publishers find that they cannot get the books into gay bookstores. The same is usual with print-on-demand publishers. Ask about this before you sign.
Let self-publishing, print-on-demand and vanity (participatory) presses be your last choices. I will write self-publishing in future columns. It wasn’t always the case, but today this is a great way to feed your vanity while you lose your shirt.
Part 2 (Gay Book Distribution)
Publishers Weekly informs us that book publishing and the book industry is going through one of the greatest slumps in contemporary history. Simon & Schuster, who just published Hillary Clinton’s successful memoirs, has had to lay off 75 people. All along the food chain: authors, editors, publishers, distributors, wholesalers and bookstores are all feeling the pinch and doing what they can to stay alive. Small publishers, including gay/lesbian publishers, are among the most defenseless victims.
If the economy wasn’t bad enough, the big boys in the industry are using their financial muscle to be survivors in one of the most brutal reality shows off the air. Barnes and Noble and Borders (having already forced most of the independents out of business) are selling the lion’s share of books today and buy almost exclusively from Ingram, the largest of the book wholesalers. Ingram, also feeling a financial pinch, is not only not picking up new small publishers, they are divesting themselves of many of the small publishers they now represent. The result is that small publishers, especially new publishers, are finding their books selling only in the remaining independent bookstores.
Independent bookstores, including gay/lesbian stores, must carry the big publishers and buy from Ingram as well as the small publishers, from whom they buy through various wholesalers and distributors. It is not possible for stores to buy directly from the thousands of small publishers that are born and die each week. The bookkeeping costs would be astronomical.
Here we should clarify the difference between wholesalers and distributors. “Distributors” technically means exclusive distributors who handle the total (or close to it) output from particular publishers. Distributors employ reps who go to the stores and present the buyers with the new books. Most middle-size publishers use distributors. Distributors warehouse books and resell to stores as well as non-exclusive wholesalers. Distributors are depended upon to do collections and pass the money on to the publishers. When major distributors go under, and they occasionally do, the publishers they represent usually lose most of the money being handled. LPC in Chicago, one of the largest distributors representing gay/lesbian/feminist publishers went under about a year back, leaving many of our publishers to die or flounder. Among the major distributors currently serving the gay/lesbian book market are CDS, Consortium, Independent Publishers Group, Publishers Group West and SCB.
Wholesalers, technically, are distributors who handle books non-exclusively. A publisher may use various wholesalers. Exclusive distributors sell through wholesalers as well. Major wholesalers dealing with gay/lesbian publishers include Alamo Square Distributors, Bookazine, Bookpeople (now in some sort of reorganization), Ingram and Koen. Wholesalers send our catalogues and mailings but do not utilize reps. Bookazine and Bookpeople (Words Distributing) have programs that can deal with publishers on either an exclusive or non-exclusive basis, which additionally muddies the waters. Exclusive distributors take a much larger cut than wholesalers, but are often worth the money. The strong distributors are very picky as to whom they will represent, rarely will they take publishers without a track record.
Established gay/lesbian publishers with reputable distributors or a direct contract with Ingram and other wholesalers, have the ability to stay alive in this vicious market. But they must do large press runs and have books that sell because otherwise all of the hungry mouths on the food chain will eat them alive.
Once self-publishers and small publishers could compete with the bigger houses, but this has become all but impossible unless they come up with a title that will sell extremely well in the independent market . In this area, small-press gay/lesbian titles have an easier time than mainstream titles. At least we can identify the gay/lesbian stores that might sell our books and the appropriate wholesalers.
Gay/lesbian publishers who do not use distributors or wholesalers soon find themselves out of business. Selling to a hundred stores is hard work. Stores don’t want to buy directly because of the bookkeeping and because they know that if the books turn out to be a stinkers, they won't be able to return them. Sadly, disreputable and shaky stores will buy directly, knowing that small publishers have no leverage to collect and will get paid when the stores are good and ready, if ever.
One of the biggest mistakes gay/lesbian small presses make is hitching up with exclusive distributors who take money up front, but who do not regularly sell to the gay/lesbian market. Their books are literally dead in the water. Often these distributors say they can sell the books to Ingram. Saying they can does not necessarily mean they will. There are plenty of scammers out there ready to take off with your money.
Part 3 (Self-publishing and Small Press)
Some gay/lesbian self-publishers and small presses have done very nicely over the years. A few have grown into significant publishers with various authors. Some like Perry Brass of Belhue Press, Patricia Nell Warren of Wildcat Press and Larry Townsend of L.T. Publications have continuously marketed their own fine books. However, over the years things have gotten continually more difficult to where self-publishers and small press publishers starting out today are usually pretty naive and would make more money turning over burgers at Burger King.
The advantage of self-publishing is that you don’t have to pay yourself royalties, but that is where the advantages ends. A small publisher has to wear many hats. Every job that you have to pay others to do, diminishes your chance at realizing the slender margin of profit.
Here is the rough cost breakdown of a book sold today. Assume a 3000 printing of a 160-page 8 1/2" X 11" book with a two-color cover selling at $15.00.
| 40% to retailer | $6.00 |
| 15% to wholesaler (plus extra charges) | $2.25 |
| 10% to printer (including shipping) | $1.50 |
| 5% shipping out |
$ .75 |
| 10% to author |
$1.50 |
From the remaining $3.00 per book, the publisher has to either pay or arrange for: editing, proof-reading, promotion, book and cover design, book warehousing, bookkeeping, collections. If you, your mother or your lover can do many of these jobs yourselves you might break even. But you still have to spend money on ISBN numbers, books that are returned damaged, taxes, office expenses, business licenses, and on and on. If the books don’t sell, many of these costs still accrue and you may be living with cartons of books filling your closet and lining your walls forever. Also take into account the value of your own time. You might be able to make more money than minimum wage, flipping burgers!
Self-publishers are also prey to every scam in the book. What book advertising and promotion is worthwhile? Gay rags, Books in Print and trade publications, a booth at a trade show, an ad in your wholesalers catalogue? All will be touted with great enthusiasm.
The answer is “none-of-the-above.” The former are all just easy ways to squander your money. Book reviews, book signings and personal visits to stores, author articles in gay publications and speaking at public events will all net you profits with minimum financial investment. Send flyers to the gay/lesbian stores, directly or through your wholesalers; it’s worth your while. They will cost money, but if they are professional they will be worth your while.
Fifteen years ago I “literally” hustled to find the time to write and self-publish my first book. I published 17 more books over the years, including one other that I wrote and one that became a best-seller. Ten lost money! From the money from the best-seller, I started a gay/lesbian book wholesale company and worked 80-hour weeks for ten years, until I sold the wholesale business and retired to the mountains with my press and my Macintosh. Mine is one of the rare success stories. Could I do it today? No way, even doing everything myself as I did, the costs are stacked against me. Besides who would buy my body now?
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