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GLB Publishers ® in 2005
Thanks, everybody!
This year (2005) marks the fifteen-year
anniversary for GLB Publishers — 15 years of publishing with about four
dozen authors, some of them new and yearning, some retired/retiring and
experienced, and some in between. I think they learned a lot about publishing
(I know we did) because our authors participate alongside the editors and
staff, becoming quasi-publishers themselves in the process. With our mix
of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry expressing the personalities and problems
of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, it has been 15 years of promise and fulfillment
(and some progress, it seems). We even have a new logo typeface (see above)
but prefer to keep our familiar "rainbow" image, too.
GLB authors participate in the design and appearance
of their books if they want to. They also receive a much higher royalty (up
to 5 times more than the mainstream). Books are becoming more expensive to
produce but we try to keep current, to take advantage of technical advances,
and also apply our expertise to current issues of importance to the community.
Where is the world taking us?
The Internet has certainly brought changes
to publishing; the internet book store has become a mammoth mall where every
book can be viewed and reviewed and is available for a price (usually plus
the invariable shipping and handling). GLB has been one of the pioneers in
Internet applications. Our entire catalog has been on our web site for over
seven years as well as in all the internet book stores (Amazon.com,
Barnes&Noble.com, etc.), and we think these are developments in the right
direction. At this time we may have the most presence on the Internet
of any gay/lesbian publisher (the others usually ignore bisexuals,
you know). On the Internet we can be the book store that closeted and rural
gays, lesbians, and bisexuals can venture into when they can't reach or be
seen in A Different Light or Lambda Rising or Open Book Ltd. or the other
friendly establishments available to many of us. This works internationally
as well, of course. The past seven years have brought us friendships and
customers in such far-off places as South Africa and Thailand and Australia,
(even Baghdad) etc. It is a niche that we take pride in filling. We can wax
nostalgic about our need to hold a book in our hand, to enjoy that special
new paper-and-fresh-ink aroma of a new book, and that's all true and will
remain true, but there are also other ways of enjoying good writing, the
expression of ideas that speak to us in personal ways, that don't rely on
traditional methodologies.
I'm leading up to publishing of e-Books,
of course. E-Books have become a strong reality for many people, either for
downloading their literature at home for viewing or printing, or loading
it into hand-held devices that can hold many novels or their equivalents,
for reading anytime, anywhere. And GLB Publishers is the primary source
of gay/lesbian/bisexual e-Books. As before, we have a mix of writers
and works to satisfy most tastes in the g/l/b communities: novels, novellas,
short stories, plays, and selected non-fiction, some erotic, some not. There
are summaries that give you glimpses of what you can expect. And since you
or your computer does much of the work, the price is low: a short story will
cost you the huge sum of $1.00, brought by email to your screen in your choice
of formats. Novels are usually $7.00 to $8.00, and if you want the
specially-designed full-color cover, that will set you back $1.00 to download.
Most books are available in at least 8 formats to suit your preference and
equipment. Checks or Secure credit card. And no trees were cut down to publish
them.
What are these e-Books? Some are written
specifically for e-Book/Internet marketing because of the increasing interest
in this modality. Some are particularly cogent for Internet use because of
their very contemporary nature. Some are favorites from previous seasons
that may now be out of print — but no longer! For instance, in
addition to publishing the first new novel for many years from John Coriolan
in 2004, we have also revived some of his works going back to the 1960s,
works that set standards for gay fiction; some were out of print, but no
more. Your perennial favorites are back as e-books!
Another best-seller that
was in danger of disappearing, Leather
Rogues, Short Stories by Bill Lee, is now available as an e-Book,
each story individually for $1.00 or the entire collection for only $8.00,
delivered to your computer. Chris Kent, author of several best-selling
fictions: The Boys of Swithins
Hall, Boys In Shorts,
The Real Tom Brown's School Days, The
Ram Stam Boys, etc. is especially enthusiastic about e-Books
and has added dozens of short stories, novellas, and novels to our list.
Some of our classical books are back, too; for instance some of those by
Robert Peters and Jim Brogan. The refreshingly frank
Secret Buddies by Mike Newman, is
back in second printing as both print book and e-book. We have introduced
some new writers as well, like the Virginia chronicler, Byrd Roberts, and
his Between Trash and Tramp,
The Duskouri Tales, Commonwealth
Chronicles, and House of Broken Dreams,
all set in Virginia.
We took on some important questions facing the gay, lesbian,
bisexual community, becoming a major voice in such issues as same-sex marriage
(Homonym, Poems by Edward DeBonis),
behind-the-scenes political machinations fictionalized in
Dancing on the Barricades, novel
by John Coriolan, and anti-gay discrimination in the most unlikely area of
hip hop, street lit, gangsta fiction, Bless the
Thugz and Lil' Chil'rins by Fredryk Traynor. The autobiographical
Guilty As Charged: True Story of a Gay
Beret by Jay Hatheway, the first Green Beret courtmartialled
for being gay, won first prize of the year in biography from Independent
Publishers. The gay maturation book, Gay Warrior:
Transforming Betrayal into Wisdom by two outstanding psychologists,
Jim Fickey and Gary Grimm, has become a standard self-help and teaching
volume.
And of course one of the most important publishing
developments of the last few years is GLB's gay detective series based on
Dick Hardesty (now numbering 9 novels) by Dorien Grey, one of the genre's
most acclaimed and admired authors. Fan clubs of both straight and
gay readers have sprung up around the world and each new book's arrival is
heralded widely. Some have been Lambda Awards finalists.
In our custom of embracing the Internet and to showcase
some of our more important works, we have added individual web sites for
additional information, e.g.
www.dickhardestymysteries.com
that includes all the detective books and
www.doriengrey.net to facilitate
the author's communication with his fans;
www.johncoriolan.com for the revivals
of his present and past works (if you haven't done it, I suggest you read
John's biography going back for nearly a century of astute observation);
www.gaygangsta.com
to highlight Fredryk Traynor's gangsta fiction; and
www.homonym.net for Ed DeBonis' poetry
and work in same-sex marriage.
Our most popular publishing
approach has been the combination of print books and e-books. When the book
is printed and distributed in our worldwide network of distributors (US/Canada,
UK, Australia), it is also made available as an e-book in as many formats
as is appropriate (poetry, for instance, is made available only in PDF because
conservation of its format is very important). For more information on our
e-books, click on e-Book Table of Contents. If
you are an interested author, go to e-Book-Print
Book Information. Poetry is best discussed at our
Per-Pub-Poetry page.
No one can predict the future
with developments occurring at the startling rate observed in the last few
years, but we intend to keep up with it and maintain our leadership role
in bringing the best possible g/l/b books to the community. And we always
enjoy hearing from you, the readers and writers.
This turned out to be longer than I intended, but if
you're still with me, have a good day and drop me a line if you have any
comments or suggestions. We're always here and we value your input.
Bill Warner, Editor and Publisher
warner@glbpubs.com |
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