As someone both bisexual and nonbinary there is a decided lack of representation for people like me. Obviously, things are shifting away from that, and it’s a good thing. But within fantasy and science fiction itself there is still a lack of representation. That is changing, especially with things like self-publishing becoming increasingly popular. I hate to give Amazon credit (for my own personal reasons), but they really streamlined the industry enough to make it more competitive with traditional publishing. When I started on my writing journey twenty years ago it was much different back then. Both self-publishing and publish on demand were models I had researched and discarded because, at least circa 2000, it wasn’t a practical model. But with time have come advancements and it’s suddenly a model I’m willing to at least consider.
There are pros and cons to both traditional publishing as well as any sort of model with self-publishing. Even as I make headway on my latest book my mind is often contrasting and comparing what model I want to try for. There are good reasons to try traditional publishing to be sure, but not everyone can make it that way. It doesn’t always mean the book is bad; after all there are dozens of things that factor into whether someone gets published via more traditional means. But more authors are foregoing publishing houses entirely and that’s not necessarily a bad th ing.
The biggest drawback to self-publishing right now is I need the money to do it, which I currently don’t have. As a broke late entry college student on welfare, money is hard to come by. What saves me from discarding writing completely, however, is that my situation is fluid. I won’t always be poor, and I can see that changing on the horizon even as I type this. Also, none of my projects are quite ready to be shipped off to the various editors I’d need to invest in before getting to ready to release. So, I have time.
What does that mean for my LGBTQIA+ characters? Well, I personally feel that my best shot at wedging my foot in the publishing door is to do it myself. As time passes this very well could change (and I’m basing that on how my mind changes every few months as I consider new information.) Right now, though, I see more authors jumping on the self-publishing bandwagon. All my author friends that are published did it themselves in fact. Considering how many of my characters don’t fit neatly into the pre-made box that existed long before I came into being, however, it’s safe to say that this current trend is desperately needed. I feel that, given everything, my best bet is to start small by doing it myself, and work towards wooing future publishers from that.
More than that, I can still remember the few LGBTQIA+ stories I had growing up, before I came out and afterwards, when I was only out to my friends. The authors who wrote those stories that illuminated parts of me I rarely saw outside of daytime TV were a godsend, and it’s something I want to pay back. Remembering how much I treasured those heroes wants to share that same feeling with others, because I know from experience how much that mattered to young queer me. Representation saves lives, and by representing myself I am giving someone else to see themselves through that lens I was given so many years ago. It’s been a long time since I was fourteen, but those memories are still fond and treasured for breaking what was then considered “normal.”