Alan Chin walked away from a corporate career in 1999, and never looked back. He traveled the globe for two years before settling down to his passion—writing fiction. Alan began writing his first novel, Island Song, in 2003, and it was finally published in 2008. Alan has published three more novels, a novella and a short story, including his multiple award-winning novel The Lonely War. He has also completed three screenplays that are currently searching for a producer.

Alan lives and writes for half of each year in his home in Northern California, and travels the globe the other half of the year. Alan and his husband, Herman Chin, have lived together for eighteen years, and are currently writing a screenplay together.

 

Your 4 books have been published by the same publisher, Dreamspinner Press, specialized in male gay romance. How did you get to be one of their authors?

Actually, my first two novels, Island Song and The Lonely War, were published by Zumaya Publications, after a two-year search for a publisher who would take a chance on an unknown writer. But I had issues with Zumaya, and I decided to find a publisher more suited to my needs for my third novel, Match Maker.

 I had heard several writers enthusiastically talking about Dreamspinner, and I knew a few very fine writers who published with them. Dreamspinner was the first publisher I contacted regarding Match Maker, and they snapped it up. They soon after agreed to publish my forth novel, Butterfly’s Child, and they have also published my two short works of fiction. This year Dreamspinner Press published a second edition of Island Song, and will be publishing a second addition of The Lonely War after the first of this year.

The staff at Dreamspinner is top notch. I have enjoyed working with them and they seem to enjoy my work, even though much of my work doesn’t fit neatly into the definition of male gay romance.

Did you ever consider self-publishing?

Before Island Song was published, I did seriously consider self-publishing. Back then I didn’t know much about the process and companies like Lulu and iUniverse were still young.  I must admit that in the back of my mind, I felt that if my story wasn’t good enough for a traditional publisher, it was not good enough to publish. So I kept rewriting and polishing the story until I found a publisher, Zumaya, who took a chance on me.

 I think the publishing environment today is better for self-publishing. I’ve seen some very slick books being produced by non-traditional publishers, and I would have no issue with doing that myself, now.

Your publisher caters for a very specific niche market. Are you happy with the marketing services they provide?

 Dreamspinner is a definite step up from my first publisher, who did absolutely nothing to help promote my books. The advantage to Dreamspinner’s niche market is they have a devoted following. I’ve sold a lot of books through their web site to this following.

There is a problem with this niche market, however. My latest novel, The Plain of Bitter Honey doesn’t not fall into the definition of m/m romance, so Dreamspinner turned it down. I’m currently in the process of searching for another publisher. This is an unfortunate twist on my relationship with Dreamspinner because my writing now is moving beyond romance, toward more literary themes.

 Of all the marketing performed for our books, which ration would you say is done by yourself compared to that performed by your publisher?

 Dreamspinner Press works hard to perform three marketing tasks: they present my books to dozens of online review sites, they set up numerous online events where authors and readers interact, and they post books on online sites for sale like Amazon and B&N and others.

Where as I do most of my marketing via Twitter, FB, guest blogging and keeping my own blogs. I also review about forty lgbt themed books per year and my reviews are regularly posted on several different online sites including Lambda, Queer Magazine Online, Examiner.com, and Dorothy’s Closet.

 Could you give us an idea of the marketing actions done by you and by your publisher and their respective results?

I’ve outlined above what marketing actions are done by both my publisher and myself. As to results, I’m not going to give numbers of copies sold, but I can tell you that I’m selling more than five times as many books with Dreamspinner than I was able to sell with my previous publisher who didn’t help with marketing. Granted that is partly that I have a wider following now and many more books for my readers to choose from.

It makes a huge difference having a publisher who is active in promoting your work, or simply creating the opportunities for you to present your work. What I have with Dreamspinner Press is a partnership—one that I’m happy with.