Today’s reader topic comes from QSFer Amelia Faulkner:
I’d love to discuss how to attract readers to queer genre fiction. As in, what does it take for a spec-fi reader to pick up Queer spec-fi rather than Het-normative spec-fi? Is there any hope for mass-market appeal? That kind of thing.
Writers: This is a reader chat – you are welcome to join it, but please do not reference your own works directly. Thanks!
In my experience the difficult part of this is the availability of Queer Genre fiction. The people I know who read genre will read mainstream authors with queer content just as readily as they’ll read mainstream authors with str8 content. I remember reading Marion Zimmer Bradley in the 70s from my school library.
But it’s a lot more difficult to find Chizine or Dreamspinner Press (for two examples) than it is to find Baen books.