Big Gay Fiction Podcast – Episode 19 – Behind the Scenes of Self Publishing, “Dolls” turns 50 & More!

Feb 15, 2016 | 2 comments

[h2]Episode[/h2]
This week the guys kick off the show calling out the new sites where the podcast is available. Jeff recaps the amazing week of reviews he had for Make the Right Choice, A Sound Beginning and Hat Trick 3: Penalty Shot/Hat Trick Overtime: Reunion. Then it’s time to talk about the books they’ve read: Andrew Grey’s The Lone Rancher, Eli Easton’s The Stolen Suitor and Sarina Bowen & Elle Kennedy’s Us (Sarina will be on the show March 7 to talk about that book). Will celebrates the 50th Anniversary of Valley of the Dolls and gives a shout out to his sister, Jessica, who has a book in KindleScout called Awash in Talent. They also review the answers to last week’s Question of the Week (you can see all the answers below).

Jeff and Will both read Chris Cook’s Write to Market: Deliver a Book that Sells and the talk about that and how it relates to the one year anniversary of the release of Jeff’s first self-published title, Flipping for Him. Self-publishing also leads to this week’s Question: “Does who publishes a book affect your purchase decision?”

Remember, you can listen and subscribe to the podcast anytime on iTunes, Stitcher, PlayerFM, YouTube and audio file download.

[h2]Show Notes[/h2]
Here are the things we talk about in this episode:

[h2]Question of the Week Episode 18 Responses:[/h2]
While listeners can leave comments on the website each week, answers come in from various other platforms as well (and we can only read a few answers on the show). Here are all the responses we got to the question “What’s your favorite read outside the m/m genre?” Thanks to everyone who took the time to answer.

  • Gillian: My favourite non M/M Romance reads are vintage crime novels — Agatha Christie is the obvious choice here, but I also love reading Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh and lately, Gladys Mitchell. Of course, the down side is that all these authors are dead, so there is a finite number of books I can read.
    Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of writing/business for author type advice books (Joanna Penn and Monica Leonelle in particular), and remember the books I mentioned in response to a December question of the week, that I put off reading because they were a gift? They were the River of London series which is basically paranormal police procedurals aka Harry Potter for grown-ups, and I loved them so much I basically just devoured the entire five book series in a month which has not happened to me in years. Rivers of London! It is fantastic! Though, there is a fair amount of LGBTQ representation in the stories — Peter liasons with a homicide detective who happens to be lesbian and is a recurring character throughout, and in the last book, he was partnered with a country cop who happened to be gay. These things are incidental to the broader story, but still very cool to see.
  • Scott: I love anything supernatural, preferably werewolves when it comes to other books.
  • Stef: Outside of m/m I’m a crime reader. I love all the old Agatha Christie books and typical english crime reads.
  • Lana: I like historical romance novels.
  • Susana: I normally read detective novels, also fantasy and steampunk. Historical novels and biographies are also among my favourite genres.
  • Laura: Mostly i read m/m but sometimes i read m/f.
  • Ardent (who was also the winner of the Episode 18 giveaway): I also enjoy mysteries.
  • Denise: I generally only read MM any more. I spent over 35 years reading MF historicals and contemporary books. If I do read anything else it’s either JD Robb’s In Death series or some of my favorite books from Amanda Quick. That of course doesn’t include medical articles that I read to stay current for my profession.
  • Annie: Harry Potter and Maeve Binchy. Aside from that, largely the classics. A lot of the time I find myself scanning iBooks at 10:30 at night when I’m looking for something new to me. Free on iBooks = expired copyright = classic. I’m also a big Star Trek fanfic reader. Though I’m definitely in the m/m genre in that fandom.
 

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2 Comments

  1. GIllian
    GIllian on February 15, 2016 at 11:48 pm

    Question of the week reply:

    I do not auto-buy from publishers. I shop based on title, blurb, author and price. I’m sure that the cover has an impact too, but I don’t consciously shop by cover. Publisher? Well, I am biased towards NineStar Press, because I know the people there and where they’re at, much like Jeff with Dreamspinner (also I’m published by NineStar, so obvious bias).

    That said, what does make a difference? The publisher’s buying page. I prefer to buy from the author or publisher directly, but some publisher’s have sites that just look … scammy. It makes me hesitant to buy from them.

  2. Eileen
    Eileen on February 16, 2016 at 8:45 am

    Question of the week:

    Much like Will said, the publisher plays a minimal role in my decision to buy a book. If it is an author with whom I am familiar or a book that has been recommended, I will not even notice or look for publisher information. However, if I am on the fence about a book, I will lean more towards taking a chance if it is from Dreamspinner.

    I typically find publishers buying pages frustrating, so if a book is available on Amazon, I will just go there to buy it Dreamspinner was helpful and responsive when I had issues downloading a book from their site, but Amazon just makes it so easy.