Samhain Publishing

Well! I just rang my local bookshop ( a well known national chain... I'm European BTW, not American) and though Veinglory's King of Dragons King of Men, wasn't on their data base they were able to find it very quickly on a UK database and have ordered me a copy. Due to the Christmas rush they think it will arrive in January. But I think that's a pretty encouraging sign of how well distributed Samhain's books are, heh?

I'll let you guys know when it arrives and what quality the actual book itself is ( quite apart from the writing which I'm sure is great :0) )

Gary,
Samhain has switched from a six month to a ten month e-book to print schedule. This, I was told, is to accomodate the printing schedules of the distributor's catalogs.

So the e-book will be out in Feb, the print release in Dec.

On a good note, my new editor had a space in her schedule, so the sequel to this book will be out in July instead of October '08.

I'll keep you updated.

Toni1953 said:

Has anyone seen Samhain titles in bookstores like Borders or Barnes and Noble?

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I have physically touched Samhain books and Ellora's Cave books in TWO of my local Borders stores here in Pennsylvania.

They are there.

Christine, super! Do keep us posted won't you?

Sheryl, that's great news.

Toni1953 said:

Has anyone seen Samhain titles in bookstores like Borders or Barnes and Noble?

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I have seen them in both Borders and B&N in the Los Angeles area. Multiple titles as a matter of fact.

Toni1953 said:

Has anyone seen Samhain titles in bookstores like Borders or Barnes and Noble?

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My Borders has oodles of them, and they're shelved with the regular romances. (Some stores will shelve the erotic ones separately.) I was looking at them last night because I had a 40% off coupon. I ended up buying a YA novel instead. (BTW they also have Elloras Cave and a few LooseId books.) You can find these publishers quickly on the shelves once you learn the different logos.

There is an exception for male/male romances, which I've seen shelved under the gay and lesbian literature section. (I bought one of their anthologies.) But I didn't see any m/m romances this time. Or maybe they moved them to yet another section. I'll have to look around again.

One thing to remember when looking at the output of erotic romance epubs is that they're in the same market sector as Harlequin/Mill&Boon -- who put out a scary number of titles every month, when you add up all the lines. So weekly multiple releases are normal for this genre -- the question you should be asking is if the publisher has the staff to handle that. Some epubs do, some don't. By all reports, Samhain does.

I've seen multiple dead tree titles from Ellora's Cave, Samhain and Loose Id in the romance section in two different Borders in Silicon Valley (haven't checked any others). Those publishers have distribution deals with Borders that ensure their books do get stocked. Not my book, though, as mine is m/m romance, and last time I looked they were shelving m/m in gay and lesbian studies, if they stocked it at all...

Thanks so much Julesjones, that clears up a lot for me, and sets my mind at ease quite a bit too. i'm a much happier camper now.

That's a shame about gay romance btw, it galls me that it's stocked way off on its own like that. Romance is romance, it should be stocked together in my opinion. Not least because plenty of women read slash/fic and I'm certain that there would be a fairly good market for m/m romance in women readers.

Gary Clarke said:

That's a shame about gay romance btw, it galls me that it's stocked way off on its own like that. Romance is romance, it should be stocked together in my opinion. Not least because plenty of women read slash/fic and I'm certain that there would be a fairly good market for m/m romance in women readers.

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The romance ebook vendors have started to recognize this field. (Ellora's Cave came to it later than others. Their original guidelines once said that they didn't accept gay romances because they were only interested in women's fantasies. )

But bookstores probably don't know what to do with the books. An e-publisher can put something under more than one category -- they can call them romances and still categorize them as m/m as well as under other categories. But bookstores can only put them in one place. They probably realize that if they m/m romance under the romance section, some people will buy them by mistake and then get angry. Let's hope that changes.

African-American romance authors are coping with a similar issue. Currently, in Borders, African-American romances are shelved in the African-American Fiction section, alongside everyone from Octavia Butler to Walter Mosley and and Mary Monroe. This is a major controversy, and many AA writers point out that they get fewer sales because most romance readers don't even know their books exist. Many don't even know the separate AA section exists, so they wouldn't think of looking for the books there. This makes even less sense than shelving the m/m books under the gay & lesbian lit section. Few readers are going to get upset because they bought a romance and found out that the characters were (gasp!) not white. Why not put them in the romance section? And why isn't Octavia Butler in SF or Fiction & Literature, etc.?

Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City books are also in the gay section - or at least they were when I went looking for them. I wandered in the Fiction section forever looking, and accidentally stumbled across them in the gay/lesbian section. I thought at the time it was a stupid place to shelve them (this was back in 1994 or 1995 - I think).

julesjones, smlgr8 and SN, thanks for the heads up on where Samhain books can be found in your respective areas.

Can others add to this list?

Have you seen Samhain titles in your local book stores?

Gary, here's a plan. How about calling the store again, say you're a prospective author with Samhain and ask what it would take to get them to stock your book (and others of the Samhain list). I'd be interested to know what sort of reply you get

I see lots of Samhain titles in the bookstores in DC. Maryland bookstores less so, they're mostly Aphrodisia, Brava and Ellora's Cave books, with the occasional Samhain.

But in DC Samhain books are all over the place, as well as those I listed above. Most likely because the DC bookstores are bigger and better stocked and personally there's a heck of a lot of Samhain authors in the DC metro area lol.

Fae

Thanks for the info, Fae, and welcome to the boards.

Ah now that's freakish! I replied to you ( kiwi) an age ago, but it still hasn't turned up. At the risk of repeating myself. I did actually ask that very question in several books stores and the local library. I was very warmly received and on each occasion the staff were very keen to help, they all gave me the name and phone number of the shop/library/chains buyer and times when I'd be likely to catch him/her/it.

I took it no further then that because I was suddenly plagued by the superstitious fear that I was tempting fate. See, I'm not a prospective author yet, just a guy who's subbed an ms. If I ever get lucky enough to be accepted, though, I'll be back onto that list of names like a blurred outline I can tell you.

Gary, you are of course my new favorite person. I don't know how different genres do at Samhain. I do see several dozen on the shelves at my Borders in the romance section but that would still be a small part of their total output and I have yet to see much POD from any press in the other genre areas--although Samhain's books are just as easy to stock as those from any large press.

I am by no means an expert. I just have a few small press and ebooks out there and am trying to make each book better than the last. I generally try and estimate a presses sales for books like mine, then look for any other kind of added value (Samhain taking everything to print and being chain store stockable, for example). If you have the same sort of approach as me you might also find Samhain a good choice.

Gary, lots of the readers and writers of m/m romance are former or current slash fanfic folk.

Loose Id had m/m titles (mine) right from the start. *They* knew there was a market for it amongst women who read romance. But as AnneMarble says, it's easier to "shelve" an m/m romance on the ebook websites, because you can tag a title lots of different ways. The bricks-n-mortar bookstores still haven't got to grips with how to shelve the books, because they don't quite fit in any existing category.

Thanks for the advice VG, its good stuff and you have no idea how encouraged I feel as compared to how I felt this morning.

btw, I didn't just randomly chose KoD's KoM in an eeny meeny miny mo type way... it caught my interest from the online segment ( and though I have to say, I don't read romance and I don't normally do dragon stuff... there's something that hooked me in the excerpt from FoD as well... if it had been a print book I would have chosen it over KoD actually! So there you go! I'll have to go and buy it too, once the print hits the paper:0) )

Jules, if only there were adspots on Fanfic.net, you guys could be plugging directly into a ready made market. I had planned to ask my fic-buds to plug my work if ever I got pubb'd, because a lot of fic readers also read YA fantasy for some reason!

Gary Clarke said:

Jules, if only there were adspots on Fanfic.net, you guys could be plugging directly into a ready made market. I had planned to ask my fic-buds to plug my work if ever I got pubb'd, because a lot of fic readers also read YA fantasy for some reason!

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I could have sworn the Sweeney Todd fanfic (yeah, I know ) I was reading last night on Fanfic.net was interrupted by an ad -- one of those "Skip this ad" types. But I could be confusing it with the Sweeney fics I read on LiveJournal. I'll have to check my history.

Anyway, I'm not nuts about those giant "Skip this ad" thingies that have nothing to do with what I'm reading. I'd rather see something relavant and smaller, even if I have to see it more often.

I was think more along the lines of those unobtrusive banners that used to run between the post-windows on the old forums. or the more descretely placed google banners. I hate those bloody big 'skip this' pages too, I wonder does anyone ever click them?

kiwiauthor said:

julesjones, smlgr8 and SN, thanks for the heads up on where Samhain books can be found in your respective areas.

Can others add to this list?

Have you seen Samhain titles in your local book stores?

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My Waldenbooks carries Samhain titles and my local mall is the major one for our county. (I'm in Silverdale, WA)

Thanks Sonarbabe, I'll add it to my list.

Well i got my rejection slip! Aw poop.

Ah well, just have to keep going on the current novel and wait for the other two publishers to get back to me :0) Definitely will be subbing to samhain again, they seem well worth it!

Onwards and upwards folks :0)

I'm sorry to hear about the rejection, Gary. But I love your positive attitude!