 In this issue, Patricia Nell Warren, best selling writer and publisher offers resources for writers, self-publishers, and small presses THE ULTIMATE UPDATE: GOOD SOURCES OF CONTACT INFO In just three decades, Patricia Nell Warren has become one of the most popular and respected authors of gay literature in the world. With eight successful novels to her credit and an estimated readership of over twenty million people worldwide, her books are considered by many to be an intrinsic part of the gay rites of passage as well as a literary synthesis of the gay life experience. In more recent years, she has also become a distinguished investigative journalist and columnist - always willing to test public opinion and her popularity to get at the facts of any issue she explores. |
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ULTIMATE UPDATE: GOOD SOURCES OF CONTACT INFO By Patricia Nell Warren How often have we bought a GLBT bookstore mail list from somebody, or downloaded one off the Web, only to find that it is disastrously old? With bookstores on it that closed five years ago? Wildcat Press learned this the hard way, many years ago, when somebody sold us a "new" list that wasn't. For a small publisher, this is like being sold the Brooklyn Bridge. Often you get the bad news only when 20 percent of your direct-mail pieces come back stamped "addressee unknown." Plus you learn later that there are a couple dozen new bookstores that we didn't know about. It's all a reflection of the speed with which our bookstores go into -- and out of -- business. One mistargeted mailing, @ 37cents a piece, can be costly to a small press or independently publishing author. 1. The Damron Guides The Damron Men's Travel Guide and the Damron Women's Traveler are great resources for updating and augmenting your store mailing list. It's the best way we know to do this. They put out new editions every year. The publishers go through every U.S. and Canadian city and community where there are gay and lesbian businesses and institutions, and find virtually every GLBT and gay-friendly bookstore there is, plus quite a few in the UK and EU. Damron also lists retail stores that sell gifts and erotica, some of which may stock regular trade books, so it's worth putting them on your list. Damron does make it hard for you to extract a mailing list from their pages, because they leave out the zip codes. But you can get around that by inputting each street address at the U.S. Post Office zipcode page. Ditto with the Canadian postal website. Once you've done the ditchdigging and created your own basic bookstore list, it's a simple matter to keep it updated each year. One woman author wrote me recently: "I can't thank you enough for suggesting the Damron Travel Guide. Mine arrived yesterday and I've been looking through it. It's a gold mine!" She added, " I'm using Lookup on Anywho to get additional information such as email, web site, etc." Other GLBT travel guides that might yield retail store names are Ferrari's, Odyssey, Spartacus and Fodor's, though we haven't tried them yet. Also check online with the Global Gay Guide Network at http://www.gayguide.net/. Find these books at your favorite bookstore or online. GLBT small presses and author imprints have other vital data needs as well. They can include: 2. Educational mailing list. Want to do a direct mailing to U.S. educational institutions? Every year, hundreds of colleges and universities buy GLBT books for library collections, desk copies, course materials and reading lists. It's an important market for us. For updated pre-printed labels, you can go to Market Data Retrieval's mailing lists. They include data on campus libraries that buy books. They mail to nearly a million faculty, half a million department chairs, and tens of thousands of librarians and administrators. Depending on how much money you can spend, their sales people can help you decide on a narrowly targeted list for gay and lesbian literature, politics or social sciences, or something more broadly targeted into the areas of Sexuality, Human Rights or whatever. Each time you use MDR, you might as well just buy their latest list of labels, because the list is constantly updated. Call their sales people at 1-800-333-8802 or go to http://www.schooldata.com/. 3. Gay Media Guide (Upstart Press). Want to promote your new book to the GLBT media? The most recent edition of the Gay Media Guide is the 2003 one, so hopefully there will be another edition soon. But it's hard to keep up with the come and go of magazines and newspapers, especially the regionals, who might do a review or an author interview. So this guide helps. It's Paul Harris's labor of love, a comprehensive listing, and it's available in book form only. Find it at http://hometown.aol.com/upstartpub/ or your favorite bookstore. Also check out GLINN's gay media database at http://www.gaydata.com/. It looks like it was updated in 2004. 4. Literary Marketplace. Want to send your query letter to lots of publishers? Looking for an agent? Once upon a time, you could only buy this hefty resource in book form. LMP was updated every year, and cost an arm and a leg. I used to send people to find it at their local library, where they could consult it gratis. It's known affectionately in the biz as "Lump." Now you can find LMP online as a continuously updated searchable database, at http://www.literarymarketplace.com/lmp/us/index_us.asp. Here is comprehensive contact information for publishers (U.S. Canadian and international), along with names of editors there. Also small presses, literary agents, speakers bureaus, printers, advertising, publicity, marketing, and more. Everybody who is anybody is listed in LMP. Best of all, it's now free. I don't know of any complete and updated list of gay and lesbian book publishers. If there is, I hope somebody will tell me about it, because writer hopefuls are always asking for one. Meanwhile your best bet is to comb the Web with your favorite search engine, and sniff around among GLBT titles on Amazon.com, and put together your own list. Many have websites and you can contact them directly. Some might be listed in LMP, others aren't. For GLBT agents, WritersNet has a list at http://www.writers.net/agents/topic/67/. I won't swear how updated it is. We all have other needs too. But these four areas of resource are a good start, and cover a lot of basics. Copyright (c) 2005 by Patricia Nell Warren. All rights reserved. |