I often wonder who my target audience is when I sit to write guest posts. Today, I’m not left to guess. One of the most, if not the most important things for an author is to get people to read their book(s). Note, I didn’t say buy, I said read. But even trying to give a book away can cost money. Now imagine you’re trying to give away books in a sub-genre of a niche genre—speculative LGBTQ fiction. The market becomes rather small.

One of my character flaws—and I confess to having many—is that I don’t always accept my lot in life. Sometimes I can get too big for my britches (and not from eating too many Kandy Kakes ). I don’t always accept that I need to stay in my niche. My reach often exceeds my grasp. But like Maria in the Sound of Music, I plan to climb some mountains in my writing career.

To that end, I decided a while ago, that I was going to market my books into the wide sea of the general speculative fiction market. (For those Monty Python fans, the “wide sea of general speculative fiction” reminds me of The Crimson Permanent Insurance Company theme song.) And to be clear, the general speculative fiction arena incorporates ALL sub-genres, including LGBTQ.

Now, saying and doing are not the same thing. Doing means reaching people who read speculative fiction of all types. Which is another way of saying, I needed to advertise. Since advertising costs money, and I am not G.R.R. Martin or the Tolkien Estate, I needed help. Enter my friends.

Shira Anthony, Kim Fielding, Amy Lane and I got together to sail into the wide, unchartered waters of general speculative fiction. (Okay, so it’s not ‘unchartered, but I keep hearing that theme song.) We’re advertising to give away the first book in four different series for free. Stealing the Wind, the first book in Shira’s “Mermen of Ea” series; Good Bones, the first book in Kim’s “Bones” series; Vulnerable, the first book in Amy’s “Little Goddess” series; and The Last Grand Master, first book in my “Champion of the Gods” series. All you need to do is sign up for our monthly newsletter and we’ll give you four free books. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

But, while we are advertising to the broad market, (see that bit about broad includes LGBTQ) we want to be especially sure that our most supportive fans—the LGBTQ community—get notice of the offer as well. I can’t say how long it will be open, though I suspect a few months, so get them while they’re free.

There are two ways to sign up; a hard way and an easy way. If you have a Facebook account, click the Facebook link below and you can sign up with just a couple clicks, no typing, no checking for a confirmation email. Facebook sends the needed information for you and then you get the welcome email with the free book links.

Facebook:

If you don’t have a Facebook account, or don’t want to have Facebook send us your info, you can go directly to our giveaway page. Note, this will require you confirm your information to get your books. Once you hit send, you’ll get an email asking you to confirm and then, once you do that, you’ll get the welcome email. A bit harder, but not too bad.

Website:

What does signing up for our newsletter mean? Not too much, we’ll just send you a few more emails than a political candidate running for president will…. Err, wait. No. We won’t do that. (I get 6 or 7 a day right now, we really won’t do that. Who has that time?) You’ll get one email a month from us with updates and sometimes special offers. And not one from each of us, one from the group. Again, we don’t want to harass you, especially since you can unsubscribe at anytime.

So, click a link, sign up, and we’ll see you soon.

Andrew Q. Gordon wrote his first story back when yellow legal pads, ball point pens were common and a Smith Corona correctable typewriter was considered high tech. Adapting with technology, he now takes his MacBook somewhere quiet when he wants to write.

He currently lives in the Washington, D.C. area with his partner of twenty-two years, their young daughter and three dogs. In addition to dodging some very self-important D.C. ‘insiders’, Andrew uses his commute to catch up on his reading. When not working or writing, he enjoys soccer, high fantasy, baseball and seeing how much coffee he can drink in a day.

Follow Andrew:

On his website: www.andrewqgordon.com,

On Facebook: www.facebook.com/andrewqugordon,

On Twitter: @andrewqgordon,

Or just email him: andrewqgordon@gmail.com

Books:

From Wayward Ink Publishing:

A Closed Door

From DSP Publications:

The Last Grand Master: (Champion of the Gods – Book 1)

The Eye and the Arm: (Champion of the Gods – Book 2) 

Kings of Lore and Legend: (Champion of the Gods – Book 3)

Purpose:

From Dreamspinner Press:

(Un)Masked

Self published:

Ashes of Life