Pamela Speaks
What Motivates a Black Transsexual Writer
My novel, THE LIE is about the
special
friendship of Constance, a white woman, and Sharon, an
African-American transsexual. I’m not doing any
shameless
self-promotion here. I want to illustrate a point.
I am an African-American transsexual, and a number of well-meaning
people
wanted to know why I made a real chick the central character in my
book.
Some wanted to know why I, a black author, put the spotlight
on a
white
character. “You’re a tranny,” one girl
said. “You should write
about
transsexuals?”
Says who? Firstly, I am a writer who is frequently fascinated by
human
nature. I wonder why folks do the things they do, what motivates them,
why
they choose this path or that? I’m curious about prostitutes.
Bigots.
Why
would a person sell their body? What makes a person hate someone for
his
or her sexuality, or for having different skin
color?
Sometimes
I can enlighten myself by writing about such a person. I just
don’t
wonder about what motivates transsexuals.
And the question about why I made a white character front and center
made me reflective.
Well, I'm a multiple minority and I’ve experienced exclusion.
Prior
to
becoming Pamela, when I was a “sissy boy,” some
people didn’t want me
around
because I didn’t act “right.”
Some concerned parents didn’t want me being chummy with their
sons
because they feared my presence would turn their sons
“queer,” or
maybe I'd seduce their lads.
Who knows? So maybe all that rejection made me sensitive and fair to
others,
made me not want to practice discrimination. Perhaps, I transferred
that
open-mindedness and sense of fairness to my writing, creating a world
where
a white genetic woman and a black male-to-female transsexual could be
as
close as sisters.
I don’t think it matters who writes what. I'd have no problem
with
a
heterosexual Asian American woman penning a story about a trio
of
transsexual prostitutes. Why not?
If the story is juicy and keeps me flipping pages, isn't that all
that
should matter?
| The
Great Publishing Test
continued...
SS MANN HUNT maneuvered the publishing procedure much faster, taking
about two months. THAI DIED, took closer to seven months, and that
doesn't count the month between submission of the manuscript and
acceptance by its publisher. I've a conventional publishing track
record in glbt (CALIFORNIA CREAMIN', SUMMER SWEAT, WHEN SUMMER COMES,
DESSOUS ZUM STERBEN, and LUST AUF SCHWEISS), but for an author without
one, the submission procedure can seemingly take an eternity by other
than the POD option. We've all heard the tale, maybe even lived it,
where one conventional publisher after another refuses a
manuscript before one finally "takes it on". It requiring a month
(usually
more) for each conventional publisher to take a look at any submitted
manuscript.
Did I mention the damage to any ego bombarded by one form-letter
rejection
after another merely because one of the many involved in the selection
of
a book for conventional publication doesn't like what you've written,
or
budget and scheduling of some conventional publishing house just can't
fit
your book into a line-up? SS MANN HUNT was definitely more
hands-on,
in that I got to (had to) come up with the idea for its cover graphic
and
provide all text accompaniment. While the staff at Green Candy Press
provided
THAI DIED's comparable cover and text materials.
Green Candy Press footed all of THAI DIED's bills from the get-go,
including the hiring of a professional editor/proofreader to go over
the THAI DIED
manuscript and make suggestions. SS MANN HUNT, as a POD book, required
immediate
out of pocket money, not only for the printing set up and cover design
but
also for any additional editing the book may have required along the
way.
On the upside, POD expenses were minimal. Even my own imprint (LAMBERT
III
LIBRARY) for gay publisher Prowler/Millivres, provided me with enormous
expenses
compared to what it cost me to get SS MANN HUNT on the stands. Storage
fees
alone, saved by going POD, were a small fortune.
With SS MANN HUNT I ended up with all book rights. That just doesn't
happen via the conventional-publisher route. Even though I've an agent,
out to
protect my interests, I still ended up surrendering THAI DIED's
| Book Club Rights to Green
Candy Press. Any author, sans agent, especially a first-time author,
can
not only end up surrendering Book Club Rights, but Foreign Rights,
Movie
Rights, TV rights ... et al ... as part of any conventional publisher's
standard
contract. And, just try getting any of those rights back.
I've discovered no difference between the number of on-line booksellers
offering SS MANN HUNT and THAI DIED for sale. Both books pretty much
appeared on sites like amazon.com and bn.com at one and the same time.
It's still
too early to monitor each book's physical presence in chain and
neighborhood
bookstores, although conventional publishers do seem to have the
advantage
of sales people with more access to non-on-line outlets.
Because of Green Candy's investment in THAI DIED, the publisher's sales
apparatus is making a concentrated effort to sell the book, where POD's
SS MANN HUNT will require more effort on my part. Green Candy Press has
long-existing relationships with various retailers, beneficial to sales
of THAI DIED, that I'll be hard-pressed to duplicate when it comes to
"pushing"
SS MANN HUNT.
Early indication, also, points to Green Candy having far better access
to the press (AKA important reviewers) than do I, even though,
admittedly, my past success in the gay-book business does afford me
more access than the normal author out to promote his POD work product.
Reviews of POD books are encumbered by so few free comp copies provided
the author for distribution to reviewers, where conventional publishers
don't skimp in effort to provide gratus reader copies to any and all
who might provide invaluable column-space publicity.
To offset whatever those conventional-publisher advantages, however,
POD presses usually do offer a wide range of how-to supplemental
materials that include press kits, postcards, business cards, marketing
plans, sale sheets...
The final proof of the pudding, of course, will be discovering which of
the two books provides me with the higher profit margin. But, as far as
the answer to that very important question, the jury is still out.
End
|