Essential Book Publicity and Marketing Tips for LGBTQIA+ Identifying Authors

We aim to empower LGBTQIA+ identifying authors to reach a broader audience made up of people of a variety of identities, queer or not. Book publicity and marketing serve as vital tools in amplifying your voice and ensuring your stories are heard. In this blog post, we want to provide you with key strategies and insights to help you navigate the world of book publicity successfully.

The biggest key to successful publicity as a person in the LGBTQ+ community is to work with a publicist who understands and respects the nuances of your identity and your work. By finding a professional who is familiar with queer experiences, identities, and terminology, you can ensure that your book is framed in an authentic and respectful manner in order to help you grow your readership. A knowledgeable publicist can help you navigate potential pitfalls, communicate with other groups and organizations to help promote your book when those groups may not totally understand queer terminology or the nuances of queer experiences themselves, and help you avoid misusing terms that could offend media or misrepresent your work. Publicity companies like Coriolis that focus on promoting underrepresented voices in the publishing industry, including queer authors, will have the best understanding as to how to promote your work, regardless of whether or not the work itself involves your personal identity. There will always be a publicist out there that will be interested in connecting with you and helping your story reach a wider audience.

As a published queer author, remember that your identity and your book are your own, so go with your gut as to how to describe your book in relation to your identity, if there’s much of a connection there at all. If your book doesn’t have anything to do with the LGBTQIA+ community, you probably won’t need to bring up your own experiences within it. It will be useful to mention the fact that you’re a queer author when reaching out to LGBTQ+-oriented individuals and groups, but if you’re not interested in making your identity a factor of your book’s publicity (unless your book is directly related to it), then you don’t need to mention it. When it comes to publicity, it’s less about you than it is about your work— mention your identity if it has something to do with your book, if its relevant to who you’re talking to, and if you’re comfortable doing so. Don’t worry so much about incorporating your identity into your book’s promotion unless it somehow connects to you as an LGBTQIA+ identifying author. Yes, your author persona will end up being a part of your book’s draw, but it will be just one, small piece of pulling in new readers, so do what makes sense and what you’re comfortable with.

One of the most powerful resources for aiding your book publicity as an LGBTQIA+ identifying author is to lean on the support and collaboration of your peers. There will also always be members of your community interested in your work due to your unique ability to better understand them, so never be afraid to promote your work within LGBTQ+ circles, you never know whose interest you’ll pique! Reach out (or have your publicist do it) to fellow queer authors, members of queer-focused media and organizations, event organizers, and other professionals who are passionate about broadcasting diverse voices. They can provide valuable guidance, connections, and promotional opportunities, helping you reach a wider audience.

To enhance your book’s visibility,  promote your work during significant holidays that center the LGBTQIA+ community. Participate in queer-focused holidays and celebrations, such as Transgender Visibility Day, National Coming Out Day, or LGBTQIA+ History Month, collaborate with queer-focused organizations during these celebrations and look out for book and author events you can participate in. In doing so, you’re raising awareness of and supporting different groups within the community and taking opportunities to broaden your network and promote yourself as a queer author looking to form a readership of both LGBTQIA+ people and allies.

As a part of both growing and tapping into your network, identify and collaborate with bookstores, book clubs, and other organizations that specialize in serving the LGBTQIA+ community. These establishments can provide excellent opportunities for book signings, author readings, and visibility within a target audience that is enthusiastic about supporting queer authors. By connecting with these groups, you’ll tap into a passionate readership that will embrace and champion your work, and potentially make lifelong connections with people who really want to support you as much as you will want to support them.

Stay informed about literary festivals, events, and conventions that specifically celebrate LGBTQIA+ literature and authors, as participating in these gatherings not only provides an excellent platform to showcase your work, but also allows you to connect with fellow authors, industry professionals, and passionate readers. These events often attract media coverage and social media buzz as well, further increasing the visibility of your book. Engaging in panel discussions, delivering readings, and networking with fellow authors and industry professionals generate buzz, valuable connections, and increased visibility.

While it’s essential to focus on LGBTQIA+ platforms and communities, don’t limit your outreach solely to these spaces. Your book’s themes, characters, and universal messages will resonate with readers of all backgrounds. By casting a wide net, you increase the chances of reaching readers who may be interested in LGBTQIA+ narratives but might not actively seek them out, or who will be interested in the rest of your book—a sale is a sale, as we like to say! There are plenty of literary magazines, podcasts, radio shows, book club, bookstore, event, etc., that you (or your team) could target. When you contact people, make your offers simple yet descriptive, and treat your book like an opportunity for them and their platform as much as it is an opportunity for you and yours.

Book bloggers and Bookstagrammers who focus on LGBTQIA+ literature can be influential allies in promoting your book. Contact them with personalized pitches, offering review copies, author interviews, or guest posts. Engaging with these influential content creators can lead to honest reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations that resonate with their dedicated LGBTQIA+ reader base.

Visual content plays a significant role in capturing people’s attention and leaving a lasting impression. Contact artists, queer artists in particular, to commission promotional art that reflects the themes and essence of your book. This artwork can be used for advertising graphics, social media posts, and website banners. Eye-catching visuals that resonate with the LGBTQIA+ community and also pique the interest of cis/straight audiences will generate curiosity about your book. Remember that visual content includes book trailers and videos, too.

By implementing these strategies in your publicity plan, you can shine a spotlight on your work and gain an audience made up of people of different identities and interests for your work to resonate with.