Recently, we had a chance to chat with author Mel Keegan, Admin-in-Chief over at www.glbtbookshelf.com

Tell us a little about you – how many books have you written?

I’ve written under four pennames, and have produced over sixty full-length novels, since 1985. There are 27 GLBT titles among that list, with three of those 27 being in the novella category. The rest range between 90,000 and 205,000 words.

How did you get the idea to launch The GLBT bookshelf?

As usual, necessity was the mother of invention! I was dismayed by the implications of the AmazonFail debacle. GLBT writers are already a marginalized group, whose public profile is heavily dependent on the Internet. If engines like Amazon and Google begin to “filter” web content, we can vanish as a species. In fact, we’re shockingly vulnerable — the most vulnerable niche within popular fiction. The Bookshelf is an attempt to counter this with a community which can exist, and flourish, through social networking. The ambition is to develop a community of writers, artists, editors, publishers, booksellers, reviewers and readers who are immune to the whims of the big “engines” because we’re self-supporting, highly visible, reachable from every part of the internet.

Why does the GLBT community need it own online book site?

Have you ever stopped and taken a good hard look at sites where GLBT authors are featured alongside mainstream writers? There are categories for Romance, Historical, Thriller, Mystery, Crime, SF, Fantasy … dozens more … and “Gay and Lesbian.” In short, no matter what the *true* genre of the book might be — Western, Maritime, Futurism, Political Thriller, Paramilitary — every GLBT book is categorized, by the mainstream community, under a single heading.

The Bookshelf is a dimension different. Every last title is GLBT, and we therefore have real, genuine categories. Imagine being at a book community site and having 3200 books in the Gay category … you were wanting a Western, or an Occult story. You face an enormous challenge to find what you want. Now, at GLBT Bookshelf, if you wanted — for example — a Gay Vampire novel, you’d open the Vampire novel list … there are currently about 20-25 books on the list. You can find what you need as easily as a mainstream reader would be able to find a niche book on a mainstream site.

The GLBT community also needs this book site for much more fundamental reasons. It’s the very real possibility of being filtered into oblivion by the major “engines” which troubles me more than I can say. Google in particular can “zero out” one’s page rankings for no apparent reason. A website or blog can quite literally drop off the internet. Vanish. Amazon can easily do this for whole genres, using a content filter in its search results. AmazonFail was explained as an error, but many people in this community don’t believe a word of that. We feel that Amazon was flexing its muscles to see what it could get away with. It was caught red-handed and had a good excuse at the ready! What happens next time, or perhaps in 2012, when “smarter” code means they don’t get caught out?

For writers and small presses whose livelihood depends on visibility — and for members of the GLBT Community who quite rightly place premium value on their rights to be able to find each other! — there’s a desperate need for a site which is massively socially networked. In other words, immune to filtering.

How did you develop the collection?

In the early days I used my own books to start off the lists, for “filler.” I built a coherent core of “how to” pages, and got the backbone of the wiki up and running before I announced it. When the day came to invite others to come in and fill it, I started with the Live Journal group to which I belong. About a dozen more writers came in, added their pages and invited their friends, who invited their friends … and so on. Fairly soon, we had enough links pointing to the wiki that it was easy to find us on a Google search. New writers and readers find us this way, every day. Also, I’ve done interviews, blog posts, Twitter — everything you can think of to get the word out. So far, 300 members are with us, about 120 of whom are writers and artists, and we have about 1750 pages online. I’d like to triple this (and our site traffic) by Christmas. That’s the dream.

Explain the community approach and using a wiki.

A wiki is a wonderful thing. It’s one of two real, genuine “community” models on the internet today, and in my mind it beats, hands down, the FaceBook and MySpace model, because of the freedom members are allowed. On a wiki (or at least, on ours!) you own and operate your own pages. There’s no limit to how many pages you can have, or what you can put on them (within reason, obviously; we ask people to stay on topic, and keep the uploaded materials within the framework of the law). Pictures can be any size you like; upload as much text as you like; in any font, any size, any color, any design. Sell your books on your own pages; load sound files or videos; anything. Change the color scheme, build your own mini-website — have 100 pages, if you want or need them. Bring your community onboard with its own homepage and members’ pages … anything you can image. MySpace, FaceBook etc. can’t compete.

The other fantastic side of a wiki is that people build their own pages. If GLBT Bookshelf were a website, someone would be working 16 hours a day, making pages for members. Now, I’m not saying this is impossible … but this hypothetical website would have to be a business, because someone will be getting paid to work this job! It’ll soon need to start earning a living wage, or the owner/editor will be looking down the gunbarrel of a foreclosure notice!

As soon as you introduce the desperate need to earn money from a website, the picture tends to go south fast. Most people wouldn’t dream of paying, say, $5-$10 for a membership in something like this. If it ain’t free, they’ll pass on to something that is. The free choice won’t be comparable, but … the price is right!

A wiki, however, is the ultimate DIY project. Members build their own content. It’s Free. It has the potential to be worked on by 100 people at once, right around the globe, so it’s growing, 24/7. I once compared GLBT Bookshelf to “a ballistic mushroom,” and this analogy remains accurate, 10 weeks or so after its launch.

There are downsides, obviously. Some degree of skill is required to build the pages, and a few people have great difficulty getting their heads around it, even though I have to say most of us find the EditMe.com wiki engine so simple, chimps will be doing this soon. The potential for error is huge. There are three of us, right now, who are patrolling constantly behind the scenes, watching for things to go disastrously wrong. We put the wiki back in order as fast as it comes unglued.

The whole thing is still fully volunteer-driven, absolutely free to register, and this is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. In 2010 or 2011, there might (and it’s a long shot) be the potential for ad revenues to pay a team to run the Help Desk. I have to say, at this moment, the Help Desk is a major commitment. There are three of us doing it, and if we were looking to get paid for the time we invest, the whole Community would come unstuck in a week. So much the better that people who love gay books, and freedom, and the internet, are willing to be in this for its own sake.

What was the first LGBT themed book you read?

Good heavens … it’s been thirty years, and I read so many. I honestly have no idea.

Who is your favorite author?

GLBT or otherwise? My favourite mainstream author would be Greg Bear, but he doesn’t write GLBT. My favourite GLBT author wanders back and forth depending on my mood. It might be Josh Lanyon or Chris Hunt, JC Price, JM Snyder … depends what mood I’m in. I have ten or a dozen favorite authors … being asked to choose would be sheer torture.

How has the Internet opened doors for new writers?

It’s flung them wide … and this is not always a good thing. There’s an insanely fast turnover in ebooks these days, with short contracts, surprisingly low sales figures and some “iffy” editing values out there. It’s very true that new writers are in a better position, today, to make a breakthrough and sell copies; but even with the significantly higher royalties (an author can make 35%, which is unheard of in other, more traditional sectors of the publishing industry), there’s not a lot of money to be earned. It’s also true that new writers find it easier than ever to “get published,” but I’ve seen some very poor editing jobs slipping through into publication, and the net effect of this is that the serious, aspiring writer isn’t in a position to learn a great deal from the experience. The other, inescapable downside is that ebooks from small e-publishers can, and do, have a stigma to overcome. They’re copping the flak that self-published authors have been weathering for a long time.

Having said that, I want to state categorically how unfair and foolish it is for the nay-sayers to tar the whole indie e-publishing industry with the same brush (and they’d like to). Many e-publishers are as tough in their editorial policies as traditional houses. Some are absolutely determined to lift the bar — and they’re doing it. New writers with these publishers have a better chance or learning their trade; and these publishers have a better chance of  selling significantly more copies, because — simply stated — their product is better. In the early days of *anything,* you can sell drivel by the barrow-load because people have nothing to compare it to. Eventually, along comes someone who does it very, very well … and suddenly it’s harder to sell the drivel. Given long enough, this process of evolution lifts everyone’s game, and I think we see it happening right now.

Internet-driven publishers are laboring under a handicap: they’re not traditional publishers, they’re cowboy operations, they’re making the rules up as they go. This isn’t just a “good” thing. It’s the *best* thing. This is how you inject new life and vitality into an industry that was becoming stagnant. Quality writers and editors are gravitating to Internet publishing by droves, bringing with them their skill, their ambition, vision, motivation. Everyone’s game is being lifted. The industry is still incredibly new; give us another ten years, see where we’re situated!

What advice would you give an aspiring writer?

Learn your trade, from the nuts-and-bolts up. Seriously. Don’t take an educated guess at the grammar. Get a book, teach yourself, be so sure of your grammar, you can argue it out with your editor. Know about story “pacing,” develop your skills in dialog. You can (and probably will!) start out writing by the seat of your pants, but as you make your way, consolidate what you know, because there’s strength in knowing for sure just how good you’ve become. And you’ll need that strength to continue in the face of disappointing reviews, poor sales, defunct publishers, writer’s block. The faith in yourself, when it’s founded on the knowledge that you *are* good, will keep you going long enough to succeed in a business that is damned hard.

What was the last book you read?

“Shut Up and Eat Your Snowshoes” by Jack Douglas, 1971, in paperback by Pocket. Last GLBT book I read (discounting my own: I’m still rereading the “Hellgate” books, preparatory to writing the fifth) was “Frost Fair” By Erastes. Next book I want to read, Wilbur Smith, “The River God.” Next GLBT Book I’ll sink my teeth into, “PsyCop” by Jordan Castillo Price.

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