A warm welcome to author and Eurocon Attendee Aleksandr Voinov
featured today on our Euro Pride Con sunday moments post 🙂

See you in Munich!

I’m looking forward to attending Euro Pride Con in Munich, because, see, I’m from there. Not THERE there (I’m not a Southerner, more a Mid-Westerner), but at least from the same country.

When I left Germany about ten years ago, GLBTQ literary events were pretty much unheard of; I wasn’t even part of that scene yet. Arguably, the industry was still very much developing (of course, flash fic had been around forever). Then this kind of event started up in the US, and we Europeans were gazing longingly across the Atlantic, many of us hampered by low funds and the sheer effort required to make it across.

But some enterprising Brits started their own thing in the UK Meet, and I’ve done my darned best to attend all of those I could. See, that’s my “home con”. Except, of course, it isn’t. As much as love my adopted country where I live and work and pay tax and whose language I speak and think in, Germany is still the Motherland.

In the context of the industry, for many years after the UK had become quite lively and energetic, with many excellent authors writing and publishing, Germany still appeared “slow”. It did have a couple attempts at publishing commercial m/m fiction, for example (as opposed to the 3 or so gay literature publishers that were older), but I wasn’t convinced, mostly on quality grounds.

But of course I kept hoping. German is a powerful language, Germans are avid readers, a lot of my readers are Germans. I have friends and contacts in Germany. I was hoping something would happen. It’s a bit of a truism that Germany is usually a couple years behind when it comes to innovation. There are still people in Germany bemoaning that e-books aren’t “real books”, and the German author scene seems largely hostile to Amazon and desperate for traditional publisher approval. Well, guess what, in our genre, that’s very unlikely to happen. If m/m becomes a Major Thing in Germany, it won’t be driven by Heyne/Random House, Fischer, Droemer-Knaur. They might dip their toes in, but that won’t be creating an industry that’s as lively and productive as it’s in the UK or the US.

And in the last year or so, I’ve felt a distinct shift. A rumble. Something like green tips appearing on trees after a long winter. Something is finally happening. I’ve seen it on my side of the Pond – publishers are pushing hard to get their books translated into Germany – which is still something of a “new market”, but I’m also seeing the rise of “local talent” and a publisher or two that seem to be quite engaged and seem to be putting out decent quality.

I think the timing is pretty much right – not a moment too soon, not a moment too late. I really hope that 2015 is the year when big things happen in our space in Germany and galvanize readers, authors, publishers. I, for one, can’t wait to be there in person when it happens.

EPIC Award winner and Lambda Award finalist Aleksandr Voinov is an emigrant German author living near London, where he works as an editor in financial services. His genres range from science fiction and fantasy to thriller, historical, contemporary, thriller, and erotica. His books were/are published by Random House Germany, Samhain Publishing, Riptide Publishing and others.

If he isn’t writing, he explores historical sites, and meets other writers. He single-handedly sustains two London bookstores with his ever-changing research projects. His current interests include World War II, the history of chess, European magical traditions, and how to destroy the world and plunge it into a nuclear winter without having the benefit of nuclear weapons.

Visit Aleksandr’s website at http://www.aleksandrvoinov.com, his blog at http://www.aleksandrvoinov.blogspot.com, follow him on Twitter, where he tweets as @aleksandrvoinov, and/or subscribe to his newsletter at: http://eepurl.com/71jNz.

Aleksandr just released his Taster Anthology part 1

Wonder where to start?

I’ve created a taster anthology of all my works published between 2009 and 2014/2015 that are still available.

In addition to 160,000 words of excerpts (always from the beginning, and often several chapters!), I’ve added blurbs and author notes for every single book. It’s nearly 500 pages long!

This is a great way to sample everything I’ve done so far without having to go to a several websites or clicking hundreds of links, and it’s totally free, too.

Click HERE to go to Aleksandr his site and to download !