GLBT Titles: Not Just For GLBTs Anymore

With the success of Alison Bechdel's Fun Home and just about every David Sedaris title, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender lit has long since moved from off- to center-stage at general bookstores. With so many choices for GLBT books, the tricky part for a bookseller is creating optimal GLBT section visibility, shelving titles that can span two, three, or more genres, and winnowing a rich field of contenders for shelf space.

At Women & Children First in Chicago, Illinois, their GLBT section (titled GLBTQ), while extensive, was not easily spotted from the front of the store. Co-owner Linda Bubon said that when Chicago hosted the Gay Games in '06, tourists milled around the front of the store to buy queer-themed buttons and pins, missing the entire GLBT section. "They never made it to the part of the store where all the GLBTQ stuff was," said Bubon. "I thought, 'Oh man, we need better signage.'" Now they have a big rainbow arrow pointing to the section, which includes Lesbian Mystery, Lesbian Fiction, Gay Fiction, Queer Nonfiction, and Transgender.

At Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Arizona, the issue was finding a spot in the store where people felt comfortable, said Publicist Holly Nelson. "We decided on the Art section. That way it still has privacy, but it's not relegated to a 'dark corner.' At first, we also pondered where to put erotica." GLBT titles are shelved by fiction and nonfiction, alphabetically by author, and erotica is on the lower shelf of the section. Nelson also noted that "we have to keep in mind that our GLBT customers are always up-to-date with their reading list," which puts the inventory focus on classic and new releases.

When Denver's Tattered Cover Book Store moved its GLBT section (at the Colfax store) from a "tucked away" position to one more visible, sales increased significantly, said bookseller Joe Eichman. And though he initially considered a separate GLBT section to somewhat ghettoize those titles, he's since reversed that opinion. "Here in Denver we no longer have a gay or lesbian bookstore. The section is great for folks who want to come in and browse and don't want to ask for assistance, and they don't have to wander all over the store."

One universal challenge for GLBT section buyers, and many other sections for that matter, is where to put titles that can easily find a home in several different areas of the store. "Where to shelve is sometimes trial and error," said Tattered Cover's Buyer, Margaret Noteman. "Ellen Hart's Night Vision [St. Martin's Griffin] didn't sell in Mystery, but it does in Lesbian Fiction...." They'll cross-shelve some titles -- Rita May Brown's Rubyfruit Jungle is in Fiction General and in Lesbian Fiction for example -- but staff tries to minimize that practice.

"There is always that balance between finding the widest audience for the book, which may mean shelving a title in General Fiction or Biography, yet having titles available in the GLBT section," Noteman explained. "That may mean cross sectioning or moving a book to find the audience. Fall on Your Knees [Touchstone] by Ann-Marie MacDonald once sold well in our GLBT section, but once selected by Oprah for her book club, the sales moved to Fiction General."

Women & Children First also looks to avoid cross-sectioning when possible. But wherever the book does land, Bubon noted that if its location isn't immediately deduced by a customer, "staff is always right there to help."

Whatever issues arise with location, shelving, and visibility, booksellers had no problems with coming up with a strong inventory list. Raves for GLBT books runneth over in just about every category -- YA, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

At Boston's Calamus Bookstore, owner John Mitzel compared fiction author James McCourt's work to "rich Belgian chocolate." Others that made the cut were Frank O'Hara, Steven Saylor, and Scott Heim.

Of course, David Sedaris was universally loved by booksellers, including Blake Hardy at Outwrite Bookstore & Coffeehouse in Atlanta. But he also gave equal billing to "anything by Sarah Waters, Michael Thomas Ford, William Mann, or E. Lynn Harris." For poetry, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Natasha Trethewey was a crowd pleaser, and Hardy's top trans title was Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex (Picador).

Eichman at Tattered weighed in with his full all-star list. "For YA readers, nothing beats Alex Sanchez' Rainbow series [Simon Pulse]," he said. "I would have devoured these novels (but kept them hidden on my bookshelf) as a teenager. Band Fags [Kensington] by Frank Polito is a recently published book that takes place in the '80s." Eichman declared it "great for guys about my age [he's in his thirties] who would enjoy reading an alternate take on high school ... one where the gay boy doesn't get beat up."

As for recent fiction, Changing Tides (Kensington) by Michael Thomas Ford won Eichman's and other Tattered booksellers' votes. More Tattered fiction picks included Ethan Mordden's Buddies series (St. Martin's Griffin) and Schooled in Murder (St. Martin's Minotaur) by Mark Richard Zubro. For nonfiction, Kevin Sessums' Mississippi Sissy (St. Martin's) is a powerhouse memoir.

Eichman noted that James Lear is king of erotic fiction. Lear's Hot Valley got a nod ("Who knew the Civil War could be so sexy?"), as did The Back Passage ("a hot Edwardian murder mystery") (both from Cleis).

Nikki Lind at Vroman's in Pasadena, a fan of the genre, listed her choices for erotica as the Best Lesbian Erotica and Best Gay Erotica series (Cleis). "They put them out every year and they always have the best stories," she said.

Taking stock of the GLBT landscape, Mitzel at Calamus saw a decline in "quality A-list fiction by gay men." Writers like Allen Hollinghurst or Andrew Holleran he thought weren't being bought or published with the same frequency as only six or seven years ago.

At Tattered Cover, Noteman said that literature overall is becoming more of a melting pot. "Over the years more and more titles and/or authors are not seen as exclusively 'gay' or 'lesbian' and are read by a wider audience. There also seem to be more genres represented in GLBT fiction -- everything from action/intrigue to vampires."

Nelson also saw that expansion of queer lit into other genres. "Most GLBT titles are fun, more humorous, and are getting to be more transgender-aware. Also, we've noticed that more and more GLBT titles are making their way into teens and children's books too."

Vroman's Lind believed publishing still had some catching up to do, now that California allows gay marriage. "I'm still waiting for all the GLBT wedding books to come out," she said. "I would love to have some GLBT wedding guides or decorating titles in my section."

On the flip side, Mitzel observed that in Massachusetts, interest in wedding titles spiked slightly in '04 (when the state first allowed gay marriage), but has since fallen off, despite the recent repeal of the law that limited gay marriage to Massachusetts' residents. "If people want to get married, they'll just do it," he said. "They don't need a book." Maybe it's an East Coast/West Coast thing.

Bubon fretted over the rising cost of some of the GLBT titles from university presses, but she was happy about increasing trends toward openness and acceptance. "People are defining themselves more broadly, or not at all. It means that GLBT fiction has tremendous crossover appeal. There's a lot less stigmatization. Bookstores aren't just selling GLBT titles to gays and lesbians anymore." --Karen Schechner