Hard Sell (YA LGTB Christian SF) Need Advice - Also posted in YA forum

SaraC said:

Contemporary, Christian, Male-Male Romance meets SF thriller. The MC is very religious, and throughout the book, is struggling to reconcile that with his religious beliefs.

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Quick question: do you write this as a conflict between his identity versus the specific brand of religion that he grew up with, or between his identity versus religion in general?

Is it important to market it specifically as Christian fiction? That may be challenging, unfortunately, since some Christian publishers cater to conservative audiences.

If, on the other hand, this is being marketed as LGBT YA with some religious themes, I don't see that as being a super hard sell. At least I hope not. Have you read any of Alex Sanchez's books? His novel The God Box, which is about a Christian teen coming out as gay, was published in 2007.

I see a big difference between Christian fiction and fiction with Christian characters/themes. The former can be its own genre or category that's marketed specifically to Christian audiences. Usually the stories will either have a strong religious message or they will have content that's aimed at more conservative readers (like very clean romance). The genre is meant to appeal to people who aren't comfortable with the content or secularism in mainstream media. If you feel like your novel definitely is Christian fiction, then great, but be careful you're not mislabeling. A novel doesn't have to be marketed as Christian fiction just because it has some religious themes.

DancingMaenid said:

I see a big difference between Christian fiction and fiction with Christian characters/themes. The former can be its own genre or category that's marketed specifically to Christian audiences. Usually the stories will either have a strong religious message or they will have content that's aimed at more conservative readers (like very clean romance). The genre is meant to appeal to people who aren't comfortable with the content or secularism in mainstream media. If you feel like your novel definitely is Christian fiction, then great, but be careful you're not mislabeling. A novel doesn't have to be marketed as Christian fiction just because it has some religious themes.

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This, and this is the important thing. As a queer Catholic, I WANT to see more Christian characters who neither reject their faith nor let the Canon decide each and every thing for them. I WANT more queer Christians who can reconcile the two and don't do either of the above. I KNOW this is reality for many people--there is a congregation in my city run by married and queer former Catholic priests, for queer Catholics who didn't feel welcome in the formally Catholic spaces. I would LOVE to see it more frequently represented. And moreover, I want more characters who go through this journey without it being the entire point of their journey. I want science fiction where the characters are queer Christians, instead of science fiction about being a queer Christian.

Which is to say, I am super excited for your book and have every faith you will find readers for it.

I tried googling "conversion therapy fiction,"* and it seems that there's a healthy number of books that deal at least with this aspect of quiltbag/church relations. Judging by the book reviews, they have both Christian/non-Christian and Quiltbag/non-Quiltbag readers. Perhaps do a couple searches like that and see who is publishing those books?

*I'm not assuming that you're writing conversion therapy fiction, but that seemed like the quickest route to seeing where the two constituencies overlap.

I would recommend sending it to Interlude Press. They have published a few faith based queer books (Luchador, And it Came to Pass) and have been expanding their YA imprint (Duet Books) a lot. My book, The Seafarer's Kiss, is published with them and I was very happy with the whole process.

Bold Strokes would be a good one. I'm pretty sure they pay advances and I've seen them in book stores and libraries, which is a really good sign for a book.

Harmony Ink too, but they are closed to subs at the moment.