GCLS Annual Conference

The Golden Crown Literary Society is having its annual lesbian fiction conference in a couple of weeks in Washington, D.C. There'll be panels, talks, readings, the Goldie Awards and other fun stuff. It's definitely worthwhile if you write romance, paranormals, lit fiction, etc. with lesbian characters. And as a two-time Goldie Award winner, my congrats to the nominees and finalists for this year!

Pride Month boosting

Like a lot of folks, I'm still reeling from the horrible events in Orlando. I want to do something to help on a larger scale, so I've started a new project on Twitter to boost organizations working with LGBTQ folks in the U.S and internationally.

Details: I've started a project on Twitter that I'd been thinking about already, but which now feels a lot more urgent. Organizations that work with LGBTQ populations tend to be critically underfunded and understaffed. It shouldn't take horrible tragedies for them to get support for education, advocacy and organization they provide. So for the rest of Pride Month, I'm going to be boosting several organizations (not business at this time) a day. Hashtag is #prideorgs and my Twitter is @clundoff for those who want to boost, follow along, etc.

I hope you'll join in!

"Planet 10" is featured on the Nobilis Erotica Podcast!

Happy news for today - my lesbian science fiction erotica story, "Planet 10" is featured on the Nobikis Erotica Podcast. "Planet 10" is about aliens and fetishes and submission and transformation and is, I hope, still pretty hot. It originally appeared in the Best Lesbian Erotica series, as well as in a collection of my earlier work. happy listening!

“The Highs and Lows of Promoting Lesbian Fiction”

I'm going to start reposting some of my blogs from other sites which I think might still be useful to folks reading this blog... Today's adventure: Promotion and writing

“The Highs and Lows of Promoting Lesbian Fiction”

If you’re an author these days, whether traditionally or indie published, finding ways to get the word out about your work is critical to the success of your book. Publishers are slashing budgets and staff for promotion, which means that even authors published by large publishers are looking for newer and more creative ways to publicize their books. At the same time, the review and other traditional publicity options for indie published books haven’t caught up with the vast number of new titles.

When you’re an author who writes for a smaller niche market, things get even tougher. I write lesbian fiction: science fiction and fantasy, erotica, and some romance. Small press lesbian fiction that isn’t primarily a romance is a challenge to promote, to put it mildly. There are few options for getting your book reviewed: fewer specialized websites, fewer book bloggers.  There can be fewer options for guest blogging or podcasting or doing bookstore readings. There is one major conference (other than publisher-specific gatherings) for lesbian fiction (the annual Golden Crown Literary Conference).

It’s considered a truism that as compared to gay fiction, lesbian fiction doesn’t sell that well (someone helpfully pointed this out on my Twitter feed just this morning). This looks particularly overwhelming when sales for m/m (written for a primarily female audience) is rolled in with other forms of gay fiction (written for a primarily male audience).  The larger the target audience, the bigger the sales, at least in theory.

That said, harder is not the same as impossible. Genre plays a big part in how easy it is to promote something: romance sells better than other genres, followed by mystery. But even that’s not a stroll in the park: big genre authors needs to find their audiences just as smaller genre or subgenre authors do. Access to more opportunities makes it easier but that’s not necessarily the same as “easy.” 

What that leaves is the need to get creative about marketing our books. We have to get our books out there to build an audience, then find ways to consistently maintain and grow that audience. I don’t have any easy answers that will apply to all books and all writers but my initial publicity efforts for my first novel are laid out in this guest blog post to give you an idea of some of the things I’ve tried. I’ve been building on my experiences with each of my books and I make a new list of things to try whenever I have a new book coming out.

Do they all work, in the sense of selling more books? Alas, no. Nor can I tell you definitively what drove someone to buy one of my books (unless they told me) after any particular promotional push. And, furthermore, I will be honest and say that the most money I’ve ever made from an individual fiction sale was from my only m/m story. But, and this is an important “but,” I’m picking up a larger audience with each book and it’s not limited by genre or sexual orientation.  People who read my novel are also reading some of my short story collections and the anthologies I’ve edited. I also have many more promotional opportunities than I had when my first short fiction collection came out in 2005.

Where did those opportunities come from? Some came from practice: I did it once and it worked so I did it again. Some came from accumulated name recognition over the course of several years and books. Some came because I pushed myself to ask and to follow up on them. This last one is important. Don’t assume that a blogger won’t review your book or that you can’t get on a writer panel or that there isn’t an email list out there where you can promote your work. Ask or create your own. Audiences are built over time and lesbian fiction writers have more of any opportunity to build those audiences than ever before.

Some tips:

1.     Look at what other writers in your genre and style are doing to promote themselves. Learn from the good and the bad, so you don’t repeat their mistakes as well as their successes.

2.     Think outside the proverbial box. What would you like to do to sell your books that you haven’t done before? What do you need to do to make it happen?

3.     Think past your current book. What’s your next book going to be? How are you planning to promote it?

4.     Build relationships with other authors, book bloggers, reviewers, bookstores and people in your social networks. Networking should involve give and take to keep it stable and make it effective.

5.     Don’t give up on writing what you want to write.

Some resources:

Author K.T. Grant, blog post – “Lesbian Fiction/Romance Does Sell Well and Here’s How I Know…”

Golden Crown Literary Society – organization for writers of lesbian fiction in all genres.

Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21^st Century Writer by Jeff VanderMeer (Tachyon Publications, 2009). Excellent resource for strategizing how and why you do publicity for your books.

Where to find me on social media

In addition to blogging here, I can be found on Twitter as @EmilyLByrne, on Facebook and on my new Favebook author page as https://www.facebook.com/Writer-Emily-L-Byrne-838988202911365/
and on Google+ as Emily Byrne+
Please feel free to link, like and so forth!

I'm also happy to host guest blogs from lesfic and f/f erotica and erotic romance writers - drop me a line at writeremilylbyrne(at)gmail.com if you're interested.

Podcast acceptance!

My reprinted story "Planet 10" will be included in the Strange Transformations series at the Nobilis Erotica Podcast!  This will be the fourth appearance for "Planet 10," though first in this media. It originally appeared in Best Lesbian Erotica 2006, got reprinted in Stripped Down: Best Lesbian Erotica, then included in my short story collection, Night's Kiss: Lesbian Erotica. It's about lesbian aliens and weird fetishes and BDSM and yes, strange transformations. Check back in for the release date and in the meantime, please check out the other Nobilis podcasts and their Patreon. Lots of good stuff out there, including a smoking hot reading of my vampire story, "El Tigre."

Win a free book and new CFS

Or at least a chance at a free book.
My esteemed editor for Best Lesbian Erotica 20th Anniversary, Sacchi Green, is doing a giveaway on Women and Words. Leave a comment for a chance to win!

Editor D. L. King will be the editor for the next volume of Best Lesbian Erotica. Her guidelines can be found here. 

D.L. King is also looking for stories for Unspeakably Erotic: Lesbian Kink. Guidelines are here.

Nobilis Erotica podcast is looking for erotic SF about bizarre transformations, amongst other things.

And there's a bunch of new calls on the Erotic Readers and Writer's Association website.

Me, I'm working on stuff and trying to get things out the door. More soon, I hope!