Library Journal Webcast on LGBTQ Books and a Comment on Specialty Presses in General

I am in the process of making my may through the archive of this webinar.  Click here to access it. You simply need to sign up for access, it is free.

If you don't have time to get through the webinar however, I wanted to pass on the websites of the publishers who took the time to alert us, the collection development librarians, of their new titles in LGBTQ fiction.  I want to thank them for reaching out to us. Now you thank them by visiting their pages:

• Bold Strokes Books
• Dream Spinner Press
• Samhain Publishing
• Riptide Publishing

Use this webinar and the websites to assess your current LGBTQ offerings. I know I will be doing this in the coming weeks. Oh, and by the way, one of the best things I learned today was that the paranormal craze in general fiction is also going full force in LGBTQ fiction.

In general, speciality presses often get left behind in our rush to order the most popular titles.  They are not reviewed heavily in the mainstream collection development resources.  However, every library has special niches of readers who would love many of the books these publishers can offer.

At the BPL, we happen to have a healthy LGBTQ readership, so I will be exploring some of these offerings to add to our collection.  But maybe at your library the niche is different. Maybe you have a lot of Arab American or Inspirational readers, for example.  Well, there are speciality presses for those interest area too.

There is a specialty press for just about every niche.

I am not advocating for blindly ordering from the small presses for all of your purchases though.  What I am saying is, if you have a special reading interest area in your patron base, don't forget to look outside of the traditional publishers to serve their reading needs.