This question may have already been discussed on this forum, but I didn't see it in a cursory search. If it's been discussed before, I apologize. The question came up recently over on KBoards, and I thought I'd bring it up here too, because it's an interesting question: How do you categorize your novels when you're writing LGBT stories?
This might be a question geared toward those of us who indie publish as we're the ones with the most control over how our novels are categorized. Trad. Pub. novels, I imagine, don't have the option to choose a category. I could be wrong, though.
This conversation started when it was discovered that an online ebook distributor was caught blurring out all of the covers in the LGBT category. The distributor lumped all LGBT books in with erotica, regardless of whether or not the book had any sex scenes at all. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, for instance, was among the covers being blurred. I'm happy to say that, with the collective outcry of several indie writers, myself included, and a few stern emails later, this distributor altered their algorithms to only blur true erotica covers and show unblurred other LGBT titles. So problem solved there.
But, the question was raised about whether or not it was a good idea to categorize novels with LGBT characters as LGBT or if it was better to list your book under the main category such as sci-fi, fantasy, thriller, etc. without the LGBT tag. This is mainly in the case of a book--like the one I'm writing--that has an LGBT protagonist, but is far removed from any sort of LGBT issues. My protagonist is someone who is also gay. His being gay has no other bearing on the novel other than, instead of the hetero girlfriend, he is trying to rescue his boyfriend from capture. The point was brought up by one respondent, Bards and Sages (Julie) on the KBoards forum, "a lot of people see LGBTQ tag on a book and they are going to assume the book is ABOUT being LGBTQ, not that the main character is LGBTQ. People who might otherwise pick up your thriller or mystery or urban fantasy might pass on it because they think it "isn't for them." You are sacrificing one group of readers to access another. Instead of making the sacrifice, we should push for a better solution."
So what do you all think? Should you label your novels LGBT if you're not writing a story about coming out, dealing with homophobia, or some other issue that affects mostly the LGBTQ+ community?
This might be a question geared toward those of us who indie publish as we're the ones with the most control over how our novels are categorized. Trad. Pub. novels, I imagine, don't have the option to choose a category. I could be wrong, though.
This conversation started when it was discovered that an online ebook distributor was caught blurring out all of the covers in the LGBT category. The distributor lumped all LGBT books in with erotica, regardless of whether or not the book had any sex scenes at all. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, for instance, was among the covers being blurred. I'm happy to say that, with the collective outcry of several indie writers, myself included, and a few stern emails later, this distributor altered their algorithms to only blur true erotica covers and show unblurred other LGBT titles. So problem solved there.
But, the question was raised about whether or not it was a good idea to categorize novels with LGBT characters as LGBT or if it was better to list your book under the main category such as sci-fi, fantasy, thriller, etc. without the LGBT tag. This is mainly in the case of a book--like the one I'm writing--that has an LGBT protagonist, but is far removed from any sort of LGBT issues. My protagonist is someone who is also gay. His being gay has no other bearing on the novel other than, instead of the hetero girlfriend, he is trying to rescue his boyfriend from capture. The point was brought up by one respondent, Bards and Sages (Julie) on the KBoards forum, "a lot of people see LGBTQ tag on a book and they are going to assume the book is ABOUT being LGBTQ, not that the main character is LGBTQ. People who might otherwise pick up your thriller or mystery or urban fantasy might pass on it because they think it "isn't for them." You are sacrificing one group of readers to access another. Instead of making the sacrifice, we should push for a better solution."
So what do you all think? Should you label your novels LGBT if you're not writing a story about coming out, dealing with homophobia, or some other issue that affects mostly the LGBTQ+ community?
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