Attention: I Want Readers!
Jan. 21st, 2026 04:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ahunter3I really like my current work-in-progress book, Within the Box. It's another autobiographical narrative: in 1982, Derek is a femme, one of the males who is more like one of the girls. Derek's worried parents are putting him into a fancy rehab facility, the kind of place where high-end psychiatrists try to reprogram people — but this time the shrinks may be biting into more than they know how to chew.
Within the Box is a psychological suspense tale. The reader is invited along to wonder who is right, and whether the institution is benign or awful, whether Derek is arrogant and stubborn or bravely resistant.
I had that particular experience and I wrote about it, and in my writing I wove all the concerns and intentions that I had at the time.
I believe it is entertaining.
I also believe it is a very good mirror into the experiences of a person that the lit agents haven't mapped as a perspective they should support. No one else has said it yet, not like that. It overlaps with stuff they've heard of and know about, but it keeps making sudden turns, usually without signalling.
"Publish it" is still the boilerplate first-tier response to "how do I get folks to read my book?" But how?? I've sent out 652 query letters to lit agents about it and have scarcely received anything warmer than a form-letter rejection in reply.
For my first book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, I sent out 1474 queries before giving up on lit agents and switching to querying small publishers. Eventually landed a contract with hybrid publisher Sunstone Press.
Going with a hybrid publisher meant it was up to me to inform the rest of the world that these books existed. To promote and publicize them. Sunstone Press had no budget for doing that. I thought I could — I hired an experienced publicist, I bought ads in major newspapers and bought a ream of internet ads; my publicist got me speaking engagements and discussion panel appearances; I emailed libraries, making the case for them acquiring copies of my books; I blanketed organizations and associations whose purpose tied in with the themes of my book. I spent roughly $50,000 on it.
Dozens of people bought my book.
I think I'm going to publish Within the Box right here, one chapter at a time.
I'm hoping people will read it and comment on it as I go. I'm hoping that if they like it, they'll spread the word.
When I get to the end, I'll start over with the first chapter, by which point I'll no doubt have made changes.
Meanwhile, I'll keep querying lit agents, because why not? But this way I'm not postponing the experience of having readers.
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My first book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, is published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback, hardback, and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, has also now been published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer. It is available on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble in paperback and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
I am still querying my third book, Within the Box, and seeking advance readers for reviews and feedback. It is set in a psychiatric/rehab facility and is focused on self-determination and identity. Chronologically, it fits between the events in GenderQueer and those described in Guy in Women's Studies; unlike the other two, it is narrowly focused on events in a one-month timeframe and is more of a suspense thriller, although like the other two is also a nonfiction memoir. Contact me if you're interested.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page, for both published books.
———————
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on Substack and LiveJournal. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
————————
Index of all Blog Posts
Within the Box is a psychological suspense tale. The reader is invited along to wonder who is right, and whether the institution is benign or awful, whether Derek is arrogant and stubborn or bravely resistant.
I had that particular experience and I wrote about it, and in my writing I wove all the concerns and intentions that I had at the time.
I believe it is entertaining.
I also believe it is a very good mirror into the experiences of a person that the lit agents haven't mapped as a perspective they should support. No one else has said it yet, not like that. It overlaps with stuff they've heard of and know about, but it keeps making sudden turns, usually without signalling.
"Publish it" is still the boilerplate first-tier response to "how do I get folks to read my book?" But how?? I've sent out 652 query letters to lit agents about it and have scarcely received anything warmer than a form-letter rejection in reply.
For my first book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, I sent out 1474 queries before giving up on lit agents and switching to querying small publishers. Eventually landed a contract with hybrid publisher Sunstone Press.
Going with a hybrid publisher meant it was up to me to inform the rest of the world that these books existed. To promote and publicize them. Sunstone Press had no budget for doing that. I thought I could — I hired an experienced publicist, I bought ads in major newspapers and bought a ream of internet ads; my publicist got me speaking engagements and discussion panel appearances; I emailed libraries, making the case for them acquiring copies of my books; I blanketed organizations and associations whose purpose tied in with the themes of my book. I spent roughly $50,000 on it.
Dozens of people bought my book.
I think I'm going to publish Within the Box right here, one chapter at a time.
I'm hoping people will read it and comment on it as I go. I'm hoping that if they like it, they'll spread the word.
When I get to the end, I'll start over with the first chapter, by which point I'll no doubt have made changes.
Meanwhile, I'll keep querying lit agents, because why not? But this way I'm not postponing the experience of having readers.
—————
My first book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, is published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback, hardback, and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, has also now been published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer. It is available on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble in paperback and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
I am still querying my third book, Within the Box, and seeking advance readers for reviews and feedback. It is set in a psychiatric/rehab facility and is focused on self-determination and identity. Chronologically, it fits between the events in GenderQueer and those described in Guy in Women's Studies; unlike the other two, it is narrowly focused on events in a one-month timeframe and is more of a suspense thriller, although like the other two is also a nonfiction memoir. Contact me if you're interested.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page, for both published books.
———————
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on Substack and LiveJournal. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
————————
Index of all Blog Posts
