Pop quiz: (No groaning ‘cause it’s Saturday. This isn’t a Gorge of Eternal Peril type test.)

How many know that my first published book was an MM Romance and not LGBTQ Fantasy?

Hmmm, that’s not many.

It’s true. (Un)Masked, which I co-wrote with Anyta Sunday, was published a little more than five years ago. I’ve written other MM Romance stories as well, but my focus has been on fantasy. But that is about to change.

To start, if you’d like to see my first attempt at an MM Romance, here is a free story posted on the Gay Authors website:

Second Shot.

To be clear, Second Shot is not polished. It is what it was meant to be, a story to cut my teeth to learn how to be a better writer.

Anyta and I also co-wrote another story, which may or may not see the light of day any time soon, and I’ve written a few other MM Romance stories that are sitting in a hard drive waiting for attention.

Right, so back to introduction. For the better part of two years I’ve been promoting Champion of the Gods, my epic fantasy series, to the world of fantasy at large. The series is no LGBTQ fantasy, rather it is a fantasy series with gay and lesbian characters. It is not a romance, it is a fantasy series with a romance element. I could go on, but the point is, this is just another fantasy series.

As most of you know, an author is a brand. If you see your favorite author’s name on a book, you are going to at least check it out and probably buy it. But what about someone you’ve never heard of? If you’re like most people, you’ll poke around, read the reviews and see what they’re about. And that is where I started to get into difficulty.

People who showed up at the Andrew Q. Gordon site (or Amazon author page) got mixed signals. If they came to kick the tires on my fantasy stuff and saw the mm romance, it turned off a few people. (I’ve got the emails to prove it.) And the same is true in reverse. Some people who like mm romance were scared off by all the fantasy. That made it hard to find and speak to readers.

A solution presented itself when Anyta and I got the rights back to (Un)Masked; use a different name for the two genres. So let me introduce my new self:

https://youtu.be/itAOGRiYRLI

From now on my mm romance will be published under the pen name of:

Andy Gallo

You can like my Facebook Page here: Andy Gallo Author

I even have a new website. www.andygallo.com. Which is good, because with it’s new cover and some new edits, (Un)Masked is going to be re-released on Monday, October 30, 2017. Anyta and I (well Andy really) will be a guests on Love Bytes next week to talk more about (Un)Masked, so watch for that on November 4, 2017.

We’re not taking preorders, but you can check out the new cover, see the blurb and read an excerpt, on the book page on my siteêêê: (And don’t forget to buy the book on October 30^th.)

(Un)Masked

Since this is Andy’s “first” book, a number of my author friends are going to be stopping by ‘his’ site in the coming weeks to talk about their first time. I’m not entirely sure what ‘first’ they’ll talk about, but stop by and see.

I see all those authors out there rolling their eyes and saying, ‘do you know how much extra work that entails?’ Sigh. Yes, I do. It will take some time to assess if this was the best choice, but the die is cast and my course is set. And with that, I’ll see you all on the new journey.