#queer publishing

BLIND DATE WITH A QUEER BOOK!

Coming in just in time for Pride, I'm finally able to start selling blind dates with queer books on Etsy! Comes with your choice of four different levels of swag & goodies (and I've also got an economy listing for people who are Broke Bitches like me).

I ONLY sell books I've read myself, AND which I like enough that I recommend them to my friends.

I am also disabled and queer and unable to work a regular job, so even if you aren't going to get one yourself, please reblog to help me out!

Find this book here, the economy option here, and ALL the queer books I'm selling (which I'll be adding to a LOT prior to Pride) here.

Taking another opportunity to shout out the wonderful, award winning "ABC Pride" that I created the styling for on the project and also commissioned the lovely artwork throughout the book, courtesy of the delightful Amy Phelps!

Do you like to read? Are you in search of the darker side of genres like horror, fantasy, and sci-fi, but wish you could find work told from queer perspectives? Do you like to feel a chill creep up your spine before an alluring trepidation grips your heart tight and sinks to the pit of your stomach? (All from the safety of your couch, armchair, bathtub, bus seat, what have you). Please consider preordering The Crawling Moon: Queer Tales of Inescapable Dread from Neon Hemlock. It's funding on IndieGoGo right now, and there are a NUMBER of really excellent rewards available (pins, patches, candles, BOOKS so many BOOKS) and some SUPER exciting stretch goals (more stories! a free pin for backers! Illustrations by me @mspencerdraws! A full novella! In the anthology!). The lineup of contributors to The Crawling Moon is amazing so far- look at this bunch:

a lot of people reccing/getting bored by the same few queer romance books

none of those books were small publishers or indie

people complaining again there isn't enough f/f (despite several people a few months ago claiming there was a lot of f/f)

some people complaining that sapphic romance is too focused on being nice/low heat/not spicy and refusing to be sensual or sexual (they didn't mention if they were reading indie or trad pub)

the same sort of tumblr complaints that no one is writing queer romance except for m/m but again, no one mentioning ever looking through indie romance

Can't decide if indie and small publishing houses need more platforms to promote, or if it's the lack of reviewers willing to tackle indie/small presses, or if what reviewers are left to do queer romance are relying on professional publications and press releases from trad pubs. Or is it the lack of budget most indies have to deal with which means less promo? Or is it just that no one wants to take chances on the smaller titles?

Anyway, lots of complaining about stuff that isn't there.... that is there.

Peach Season - Catherine Fletcher

Buy Now

“He’s been spoiled by the availability of produce in Los Angeles, spoiled by all the choices and the never-ending stream of ripe fruits and vegetables in or out of season. There remains, though, nothing quite like a peach, plucked from the tree at the peak of ripeness, still warm from the sun in the orchard.”

- Peach Season

In rural Ontario Michael is trying to rediscover himself, far from the distractions – and men – of Los Angeles. But then the one man he thought he’d left behind arrives on his doorstep, asking for dinner and, maybe, another chance. Peach Season is an original 3,500 word story from Catherine Fletcher about the sweetness of discovering that love might not be lost after all.

Buy Now

Sign up for our mailing list here!

Hi all, Over the past several months, many people have been attempting to steal Qwear's name and use it for their company. Luckily, none of them has Trademarked it yet, and this could change any time. It costs $350 with all filing fees. We have amazing support on Patreon, but this is unfortunately an extra cost that we can't afford on our own. Can you spare something to help us keep our rights to the name "Qwear"? All donations are appreciated — big and small. Thanks so much!

Ways to donate:

Hey lovely folks of the LGBT+ Tumblr community! Do you love Scotland? Are you looking for more queer rom-coms set in the early 2000s? Specifically about wlw who don’t die at the end?

My dear friends over at Knight Errant Press are publishing a novel by agender Scottish author, Ely Percy, Vicky Romeo + Joolz. It’s about 75% funded on kickstarter right now with less than 10 days to go, but could always use your help!

Knight Errant Press is an exclusively queer Scottish publishing house that have previously published F, M, or Other: Quarrels with the Gender Binary and Queering the Map of Glasgow, two anthologies featuring writers from the LGBT community of not just Scotland, but all over the world.

I don’t know how many of the folks reading this were as active in Ye Olden Days Of The Internet as I was, but circa 2000, discoverability for a webpage was a very different process than it is now. I ran a fan site back in the day, and then, the key was getting involved with similar web pages and building connections, especially trying to get listed on relevant link farms and joining web rings related to things my page was about. A web ring is a lot like a link farm, but instead of being “one page with a big ole list of web pages,” it’s instead an interlinking system. Every website in the ring bears a badge and links to the full list, the previous site, and the next site, and the idea is that if someone clicks “next site” enough times, they’ll circle through the entire list of sites in the web ring and end up back where they started. Rings were always very handy for driving traffic (from the web site owner point of view) and for finding a lot of like-minded web sites (from the user point of view).

See where I’m going with this?

With big corporations now dominating the internet and often drowning out softer voices or throttling traffic to smaller pages, with our SEO often buried by the clamor of useless ads unrelated to our work, I’m looking back to how I used to find people to request WinAmp skins from me and thinking it’s time to go back to The Old Ways.

All of which is to say: I’d like to make a web ring for indie publishers. Especially for indie publishers on the smaller end of the spectrum and those who work in speculative fiction, LGBTQIA+ creators and works, or both. As in: places like Duck Prints Press.

But a web ring can’t possibly be composed of only one web page, and that’s where this post comes in. Do you own an indie press or run the website for one? Would you be interested in having the site for your press be included in a web ring of indie presses? Then fill out my web ring interest check! I figure if I can get about a dozen folks interested, I’ll put something together.

I hope to get to know y’all!

Not an indie press? please signal boost to help spread the word!

Absolutely zero pressure ping to a few indie presses I know have Tumblr accounts. @inclusivefuture (I know you're closing down but... yeah. <3 ) @spacefruitpress @archiveoftheodd @thewhumpyprintingpress @echolitmag