Man with insight: meet Michael Connor, the editor who chooses the titles for queer book club InsightOut Books.While Amazon has made finding and purchasing LGBT-interest books easier for nonurban residents in recent years, InsightOut Book Club has made it a specialty. Founded in 2000, InsightOut stocks 300 to 400 titles at a time, highlights new works monthly, and publishes exclusive editions of buzz titles. Longtime book lover Michael Connor joined InsightOut as editor in early 2006. The Ohio native moved to New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. in 1999 and became associate editor at St. Martin's St. Martin's or St. Martins may refer to:
How does the selection process typically begin? It begins when publishers send us galleys or manuscripts of future books. We try to have a new mystery each month, a new novel, a memoir--a lot of erotica erotica - pornography and art books as well. We pick about 12 to 14 new titles a month, and that does make it hard because there are lots to choose from. What do you typically look for in a selection? I like things that are fun, that I keep turning the pages of, which isn't always easy, unfortunately. We have a core stable of big-name authors but we also do two or three new authors monthly if we can. And every year we pick six to 10 authors who, for their first time being in the club, receive the Violet Quill quill: see pen. award. Conversely con·verse 1 intr.v. con·versed, con·vers·ing, con·vers·es 1. To engage in a spoken exchange of thoughts, ideas, or feelings; talk. See Synonyms at speak. 2. , what entails an instant nix? Poetry, which we hear from members they would like more of, but nobody buys it. I don't like things that are too stereotypically the gay novel--everybody has AIDS, is miserable, and ends up unhappy in the end. We want fabulousness. How do lesbian titles fare? We have a hard time finding lesbian stuff, actually. We get a lot of lesbian historical books that don't sell very well, unfortunately. But we love lesbian mysteries and thrillers. We've seen lesbian memoirs grow this year. We've done really well with the L Word book--no real surprise there--and with The Night Watch by Sarah Waters Sarah Waters is a British novelist. She is best known for her first novel, Tipping the Velvet, as well the novels that followed, including Affinity, Fingersmith, and The Night Watch. and Gwendolyn Bounds's Little Chapel on the River. What are the hottest gay books this summer? Brian Sloan's new book, Tale of Two Summers, which is really great. A great photography book called The Boys of Bel Ami--absolutely gorgeous. And a new mystery for the ladies For the Ladies is a extended play by Machine Gun Fellatio. The extended play was released in 2002. Track listing
What else can people expect in the future from InsightOut? We're looking at publishing our own books rather than buying from publishers. And we're changing the format of the catalog catalog, descriptive list, on cards or in a book, of the contents of a library. Assurbanipal's library at Nineveh was cataloged on shelves of slate. The first known subject catalog was compiled by Callimachus at the Alexandrian Library in the 3d cent. B.C. in August to showcase more books and authors and featuring more exclusive content on our Web site, including author interviews. Just trying to get people stuff they can't get anywhere else. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion