Book Talk
Small Queer Presses and the Post-2016 Publishing Landscape
What has happened to the LGBTQ book world?
My first novel, Out of Order, was published with Harmony Ink, the then-new Young Adult imprint of Dreamspinner Press, in 2015. It was a NaNoWriMo novel, written in just one month: November 2012. It’s hard to believe that was over ten years ago now. I was 17 years old.
I didn’t have many expectations when I answered Harmony Ink’s Call for Submissions in 2014, but when I got a contract in my inbox just a few weeks later, I was over the moon. They offered me a $500 advance against royalties, which — for a college freshman living at home — felt like winning the lottery.
Maybe it was the popularity of slash (ie, M/M) fanfiction or a general feeling that Pride was becoming cool or mainstream, but there was a huge surge in LGBT YA books between 2010 and 2016. It was the era of Twilight, The Hunger Games, and The Fault in Our Stars. Everyone wanted to produce the next big YA hit, and small presses were not immune; even once-niche queer erotica publishers were suddenly big enough to branch out into other markets, and they all chose YA.
Dreamspinner Press, one of the leading publishers of M/M erotica, is an “indie” small press. Independent publishing companies bridge…
