I shouldn't take a look through the titles published by gay/lesbian publishers like this one. Why? Because not only do they seem to have no penetration into libraries (which is important to me-I somehow won't feel I've really written a book till it's in libraries), but-
...while far be it from me to judge books by their promotional blurbs...they all sound awful. Romance-novel awful. And it makes me think oh god, I know what's going to happen.
I used to worry my manuscript would fall between two poles; too gay for the "traditional" audience, not enough so for the gay audience. Now I think it's going to be: Too gay for the mainstream, too good for the gay & lesbian press.
(That's it, Ben. That's the kind of unwarranted arrogance that'll be sure to cushion the blow when the form-letter rejections start rolling in)
Oh, god...
4 comments:
I'm with bbovenguy. Stop looking at publishing houses until a) you have the manuscript in a condition you feel is saleable with few rewrites, and b) you have an agent who also feels that way. Cart before the horse, here, Ben.
Page 48, How To Write A Damn Good Novel:
How do you know what the rules are? You go to the library and check out an armful of the type of book you'd like to write, and you read like a maniac. Sorry, but there are no shortcuts. If you don't read deeply in the type of fiction you want to write, you are doomed to failure. You must be steeped in the traditions, conventions, and pigeonholes-the genres.
I feel you-I was the same way for a long time. Then I changed to reading as many as I could get my hands on and trusting my sense of self to filter out the stuff that wasn't good for me.
I think it's when I decided to try prose-it just seemed dangerously prideful to start without knowing anything about it.
Yeah, but William Goldman then filled two books with all the things he thinks he knows, which kind of renders his Rule #1 moot.
And this may come as a surprise to you-I know it would me, as a typically self-centered artist-but we're NOT ACTUALLY TALKING ABOUT YOU.
We're talking about me, and if I'm gonna fail, it is not gonna be because I didn't know all the "rules" or listen to as much advice as I can get.
I may not follow all the "rules"-my manuscript already breaks one big one-and I may not take all the advice.
But I'm gonna know what my circle is before I step outside it.
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