Happy Wednesday Scribblers. It’s been another busy week for me. I hope you saw the photos, or better yet were able to come, and visit at the Bay Area Book Festival in Berkeley, CA this last weekend. The festival was amazing, and I was so thrilled to be with my wonderful author group from the Bay Area Queer Writers Association (learn more here). It was a blast; however, the event was a big eye opener on how important our voices are. We were the only queer book group at the whole event. And the book festival is one of the largest in the Bay Area. We need to work on our visibility and ensure all our voices are heard. So, if you have book events in your area, let them know you want to see queer representation at the event. Talk to your local book store about hosting a queer author reading. All our voices matter and deserve to be heard.
In that vein, I’m thrilled to have Andrew and Carl from Spectrum Books a new LGBTQ+ publisher (find them here) with me today to introduce us to Spectrum Books. Andrew and Carl are the Managing Directors of Spectrum Books, and if you missed the news, Spectrum Books signed me on and will be releasing Volaria in the Fall of 2022 (learn more here).
Welcome Andrew and Carl
Andrew May
Thanks for including us in your blog! We’re Andrew & Carl from Spectrum Books – an independent publisher solely focused on LGBTQ+ books. We’re based in London, but work with authors all over the world, from Las Vegas to London to Australia.
We started Spectrum almost exactly a year ago. Being authors ourselves, we felt very under-represented when it came to submitting our books to publishers. Most publishers we approached either wanted us to tone down any LGBTQ+ themes in our books, or rejected it completely, we believe, because of the content. Most publishers are primarily concerned with how many books they can sell. Which is fair enough, it is business, after all. However, they also believe that books with LGBTQ+ themes or characters are worth less to them because of a smaller readership. We want to change that at Spectrum Books! Our aims are for LGBTQ+ books to not only be read by those identifying as part of the community, but by those who don’t as well. We believe that if someone loves a good romance novel, for example, there’s no reason why they can’t enjoy a male/male romance as well. A crime thriller novel with a gay character is still a crime thriller novel!
Going from being authors to setting up Spectrum Books felt really quite natural. Andrew is primarily the graphics designer and marketing expert, and has worked in both roles professionally and as a hobby. Carl is the primary editor, having spent most of his adult life editing either freelance or for various publishers. We felt that we were perfectly positioned to join our skills together and help give LGBTQ+ books the representation and quality work that they deserve. The amount of work we’ve been doing since we started is gargantuan! From reading a huge amount of submissions to working on covers, to the near endless editing process, but we love doing it! We feel that authors are putting their trust in us with their manuscripts, and we’re very grateful for it. We both have very little time for writing anymore, but Spectrum Books has ignited a new passion in both of us.
Reflecting on our first year running Spectrum Books, the hardest part has to be turning down submissions. Over the last few months, we’ve been receiving a huge amount of submissions. Some publishers will accept more submissions than they’re capable of working with and their standards end up falling behind as a result. We want to do the best for each author that we sign – and that takes time. So, we have to be realistic about how many submissions we can accept. This does mean we have to turn people away, but we always try to offer advice on what they can do to be successful in the future, with another publisher, or with us if they re-submit in the future. Also, switching off can be hard! We don’t have any set working hours, primarily because there is literally a twenty-hour time difference between some of our authors!
Our favorite part of running a publishing company is the same for both of us. The joy that authors feel when the manuscript that they’ve worked so hard on for months or years is turned into a book – and when it’s physically in their hands – is a feeling that cannot be experienced in any other way. We’ve been in this same situation, finally getting to touch, to read, to flick through, to gaze at lovingly whilst it’s sat on your bookshelf. We’ve been lucky enough to have signed eleven authors in our first year, and we’ve worked as hard as we can to provide this feeling to each one of them. Also, it has been and continues to be a pleasure to work with such a wonderful, diverse group of authors. We’ve got people from different countries, backgrounds and cultures who identify across the LGBTQ+ spectrum. We can’t be successful without the success of our authors, so we’re thrilled they’ve chosen us to share their journey with them.
We’ve been primarily finding the authors who work with us through social media and word of mouth. It’s been wonderful to have heard such great feedback from our authors so far – to have them recommend us to their author friends is a wonderful thing. I think it’s one of the best measures that we’re doing everything we can to provide the best possible experience for our authors. We’re always happy to hear from anyone who is looking to publish their LGBTQ+ book. We’ve been in your shoes and welcome the opportunity to offer advice whenever we can.
Thanks again for having us, M.D.. If anyone wants to find out more about Spectrum Books, you can find us on our website here. www.spectrum-books.com, or on Instagram here. @spectrumbookpublisher. We’d love to hear from you!
There you go. Thank you, Andrew and Carl, for stopping by today to share a little about you and Spectrum Books. I’m thrilled to be part of this new publishing house, and I’m excited to watch it grow. That’s it for this week. Don’t forget to check out my events calendar (here) as I’m adding new in-person events all the time. You never know when I’ll be in your neck of the woods. Until next time, have a great week.