Originally Posted By Kingdemon
Alex! It’s me again! Sorry for bothering! I talked to the editor at Blind Eye Books and she said she needed my whole manuscript. She’s willing to look at it, at least, and so I’ll be sending it in! Thank you so much for your support!

Hey Kingdemon! You certainly aren’t bothering — and I’m delighted to hear that the editor at Blind Eye Books is interested in seeing your work. That’s awesome! Many editors will give a thanks, but no thanks, so this is great news, regardless of what happens next. If she accepts it for publication or wants to work with you on it, so much the better. (But remember that most published authors have to submit their work dozens of times to different places before they get published, so if this book turns out not to be right for their company, don’t give up! Keep sending it [and your other works] out! But damn, good work, man — you’re already ahead of the game!)

Also, I finally got up the courage to make myself a website for a few of my stories to see what others have to say.

Very cool. I’ll certainly poke my head around it — thanks for the invitation. Good for you for putting yourself out there. I hope you get a lot of great feedback.

And you’re very welcome for any support I’ve been able to offer. Take care of yourself — and keep us posted!

Please keep coming back — if for no other reason than to let us know how things are progressing for you. And if you like our work here, check out the book when it comes out — by then you’ll be old enough to buy it yourself — at whatever cool campus you land at….

OK, thank you for clarifying your situation. First off, a word of encouragement — not that you’ve asked for any. Having been where you are, things are about to get a whole lot better in your life very, very soon. I assume that you’re about to head off to college — or are looking at colleges anyway — and let me tell you, once I was out of high school, out of my parents’ home and at college my whole world improved 1000%. It’s not just that I didn’t have to hide who I was from the people I lived with — it’s that I was suddenly surrounded by really cool people and a really cool environment — and for the first time in my life I could truly be myself and my whole world suddenly became so much better. It was an amazing feeling — a revelation, really. I didn’t know life could be so sweet. Really.

Try to choose a university as liberal and as far away from home as your circumstances will allow. And ideally in a more metropolitan area — although, for me, Burlington, Vermont turned out to be metropolitan enough.

And as for coming out to the parents, well, you might find that they surprise you — love has a strange way of eventually helping even the most stubborn folks grow –but you certainly know them better than I do and there’s absolutely no rush. Better for you to feel solid in your self and your life before taking that on. Just be aware, they might turn out to be a bigger support in your life than seems possible right now. Mine did.

(Oh, and if you currently don’t have plans to go to college? CHANGE YOUR MIND! FIND A WAY! I’m telling you — for a young gay man, it’s like stepping from black and white into color… And I hear that there are even a few with fine writing programs — which is a great way to make contacts in the industry……)

….which leads me off of my soapbox and onto answering the question you really asked me. ^^;

Sooooo…. you can’t get into a bookstore for fear of filicide. Seeing as you’re seventeen, I find it a little hard to believe that you never have an afternoon off to pop into a bookstore for a little research, but maybe you live in a small town filled with busybody gossips, or you don’t drive and Barnes & Noble is 50 miles away, or whatever. I’ll take your word for it.

I’m still going to recommend you get your hands on that Writers’ Market book I mentioned. First off, it’s 100% parent safe (unless your parents have something against writers, in which case, God help you…). Secondly, as I said, it has good advice about formats, rights, query letters, etc. — all that stuff you’ll need to know if you’re looking to get published professionally. And thirdly, they’ve already done the research for you about what kinds of magazines and book publishers would be interested in your work.

Yep, that’s right, they have sections for the gay fiction market in this book (right alongside the sections for Christian fiction — and if your folks ask, I suppose you could point to that section [or some variation] in a pinch ). The gay fiction section will list buyers for both short stories and longer works, tell you what those publishers are looking for, payment terms, who to send it to, etc. And you don’t even need to set foot into a bookstore to get it — you can buy it right from Amazon.

It’s still preferable, once you’ve narrowed things down, to go actually buy some other works from the publishers you think are likely candidates — just so you can see for yourself what they publish and also so it looks like you’ve done your homework when you send them a query letter: (“I just loved Bareback Mountain Majesty which you published last year and my book Sweaty Ukes in Love is just like it, only hotter!”) But if you can’t do that, you can’t do it. The Writers’ Market book will give you a lot of what you need to get started.

And again, as you say your stories tend to be fantasy and sci-fi, I’m going to recommend you check in with the folks over at Blind Eye Books — on the surface, your work looks like it might be right up their alley. The publisher also has a blog — perhaps she might be willing to offer advice as well.

Anyway, I hope that’s helpful. Glad to hear that folks have been encouraging about your writing — let me join in that chorus.

If you have any other questions, feel free to keep asking. And good luck — with everything!

Alex

Oliver,

I guess licensing choice was only bothering me because I really thought the line-up DQ offered was exceptional.

DQ does offer (did offer?) nice titles - I was especially looking forward to The Tyrant Falls in Love. And I, too, will regret them closing their doors, if that is what ultimately happens.

I saw the industry as over-saturated because there are many Yaoi-only publishers offering good products that it’s hard for some poor fans to choose. Also, the fact that June releases approx. 7 books a month factored into my thinking.

I see your reasoning here, and I think Simon Jones spoke to this when he said that “readership has become segmented” for yaoi. The days of a yaoi fan buying every single English translation of every yaoi book are most likely over. And here is where your point is well taken — a yaoi publisher can’t just assume (if they ever could) that every single book they publish will be bought by every rabid yaoi fan. Smarter choices must be made with appeals to specific segments of the market in mind.

That said, it still doesn’t necessarily speak ill for the yaoi genre. As yaoi becomes more widely known, there are more and more readers who might find an individual “segment” appealing. For example, non-consensual sex leaves me icy cold in a romance book — now that there are more choices, I’m not likely to purchase such titles for my own pleasure — but, by the same token, I’d be willing to bet that the number of English-language readers who do like the non-con has increased along with the awareness of the genre, so the market as a whole could very well still be growing. Make sense?

Anyway, thank you for the thought-provoking post — and for stopping by!

Alex

@Alex:

Thank-you for your detailed message about the Yaoi industry and I do agree with you that it has different factors affecting it.

I guess licensing choice was only bothering me because I really thought the line-up DQ offered was exceptional.

I saw the industry as over-saturated because there are many Yaoi-only publishers offering good products that it’s hard for some poor fans to choose. Also, the fact that June releases approx. 7 books a month factored into my thinking.

Thanks again for providing insight on Yaoi in North America!

-Oliver

I’m really glad to hear you liked it and found it informative!

(Gave me a giggle too! “This being a yaoi site, you’ve of course offered me a great set-up by asking me whether I could screw with a Japanese businessman.”)