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Dec. 14th, 2016 03:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainwatersparkUgh sorry, I'm in an upset ranting mood about my book.
Even though I have full confidence in my writing ability and the potential mass appeal of my book's premise (I mean, it's basically an inverted version of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and supposedly everyone loved that movie), it feels like it's "too queer" for traditional publishing (because it has an m/m romance at the center between an asexual and bisexual character) and yet "too speculative" for the queer romance market, which is heavily concentrated on contemporary romance, to the extent that some queer publishers won't even consider sci-fi/fantasy that is regular novel length. (Even though my book is a "light" near-future sci-fi.)
So the question is...WTF is a writer of a sci-fi queer romance supposed to do???
I'm honestly tearing my hair out at this point. This is the book that I poured my heart into writing during the dark November of my soul. Like I just said, I honestly believe it could appeal to a wide audience, considering the widespread popularity of CATWS, Bucky Barnes, and the Bucky/Steve ship online. Yet I can't find an agent, I apparently can't submit to one queer publisher because I'm freaking 1.8k words over their limit, and I'm worried about submitting to Dreamspinner because it doesn't feel like the greatest fit.
I'm told that queer sci-fi/fantasy doesn't sell well. I honestly don't understand how that's possible. In the realm of traditional publishing, yes, hard sci-fi (e.g. space operas) and epic/high fantasy tend to be somewhat niche (unless your name is George R. R. Martin or J. R. R. Tolkien). However, that's an issue with those particular brands of sci-fi/fantasy in general. Sci-fi/fantasy "lite" tends to be extremely commercially successful—look at Divergent, Truthwitch, the Sarah J. Maas books. All have really shoddy, flimsy worldbuilding with just an *aura* of science fiction/fantasy, and they all sold like gangbusters.
Besides, there's even an entire successful traditional publisher that publishes sci-fi/fantasy (Tor).
So how is it possible that just slapping queer characters into sci-fi/fantasy won't sell???
*
I'm not a believer in the idea of "writing to the market."
If you look at the breakout successes in terms of novels, none of them were following a commercially successful genre/trend at the time. In fact, they became the trendsetters. I'm thinking of books like Harry Potter, the Twilight series, The Hunger Games series.
Or how about Captive Prince? I have my problems with the books, but they've been undeniably successful—and yet if the author even tried querying agents for a "low fantasy m/m erotic slave fiction," I bet she would've collected hundreds of rejections.
Captive Prince IS, in fact, fantasy. It's a low fantasy, it's a historically-inspired fantasy, but it's fantasy nonetheless. It's a queer fantasy, and in spite of its race issues and character problems in the last book, it's been commercially successful.
[I also dislike the idea that "category x won't sell" just because it's historically been used as a reason for excluding characters of color, queer characters, disabled characters, etc. from publishing. Applying it to a genre rather than a character group is still using that same kind of argument.]
It's not a problem of genre—it's a question of whether the book is well-written, or whether the book can have an appealing enough premise to make up for horrible writing.
But where does that leave me? For the time being, still stuck in unpublished-and-I-don't-know-how-I'm-going-to-get-published hell.
Even though I have full confidence in my writing ability and the potential mass appeal of my book's premise (I mean, it's basically an inverted version of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and supposedly everyone loved that movie), it feels like it's "too queer" for traditional publishing (because it has an m/m romance at the center between an asexual and bisexual character) and yet "too speculative" for the queer romance market, which is heavily concentrated on contemporary romance, to the extent that some queer publishers won't even consider sci-fi/fantasy that is regular novel length. (Even though my book is a "light" near-future sci-fi.)
So the question is...WTF is a writer of a sci-fi queer romance supposed to do???
I'm honestly tearing my hair out at this point. This is the book that I poured my heart into writing during the dark November of my soul. Like I just said, I honestly believe it could appeal to a wide audience, considering the widespread popularity of CATWS, Bucky Barnes, and the Bucky/Steve ship online. Yet I can't find an agent, I apparently can't submit to one queer publisher because I'm freaking 1.8k words over their limit, and I'm worried about submitting to Dreamspinner because it doesn't feel like the greatest fit.
I'm told that queer sci-fi/fantasy doesn't sell well. I honestly don't understand how that's possible. In the realm of traditional publishing, yes, hard sci-fi (e.g. space operas) and epic/high fantasy tend to be somewhat niche (unless your name is George R. R. Martin or J. R. R. Tolkien). However, that's an issue with those particular brands of sci-fi/fantasy in general. Sci-fi/fantasy "lite" tends to be extremely commercially successful—look at Divergent, Truthwitch, the Sarah J. Maas books. All have really shoddy, flimsy worldbuilding with just an *aura* of science fiction/fantasy, and they all sold like gangbusters.
Besides, there's even an entire successful traditional publisher that publishes sci-fi/fantasy (Tor).
So how is it possible that just slapping queer characters into sci-fi/fantasy won't sell???
*
I'm not a believer in the idea of "writing to the market."
If you look at the breakout successes in terms of novels, none of them were following a commercially successful genre/trend at the time. In fact, they became the trendsetters. I'm thinking of books like Harry Potter, the Twilight series, The Hunger Games series.
Or how about Captive Prince? I have my problems with the books, but they've been undeniably successful—and yet if the author even tried querying agents for a "low fantasy m/m erotic slave fiction," I bet she would've collected hundreds of rejections.
Captive Prince IS, in fact, fantasy. It's a low fantasy, it's a historically-inspired fantasy, but it's fantasy nonetheless. It's a queer fantasy, and in spite of its race issues and character problems in the last book, it's been commercially successful.
[I also dislike the idea that "category x won't sell" just because it's historically been used as a reason for excluding characters of color, queer characters, disabled characters, etc. from publishing. Applying it to a genre rather than a character group is still using that same kind of argument.]
It's not a problem of genre—it's a question of whether the book is well-written, or whether the book can have an appealing enough premise to make up for horrible writing.
But where does that leave me? For the time being, still stuck in unpublished-and-I-don't-know-how-I'm-going-to-get-published hell.
