A New Direction for Once Upon a Bookcase:
Now an LGBTQ+ Children's & Fantasy Book Blog
It's the last day of Pride Month, and there's no better time to announce that there is going to be a change of direction for Once Upon a Bookcase. From now on, this blog will be a primarily LGBTQ+ book blog!
We are getting such a range of LGBTQ+ stories now, across a range of genres, and there's so much to read! I've also found that I'm generally drawn to queer fiction over cishet fiction. And with the work I'm doing at the bookshop I work at on the permanent LGBTQ+ YA section, the permanent LGBTQ+ YA & MG table, and LGBTQ+ books in the Children's Department as a whole, I'm so hugely passionate about these books, and that passion has me wanting to do more. To shout about them loudly outside of work more. To read more widely, to highlight them here, to help, in another way, queer readers find the right books for them.
So what will this actually look like? I adore YA and fantasy, as regular readers will know, so I'll more often be focusing on those with queer content. But I'll also be reviewing queer middle grade and picture books, and occassionally some adult romance. I'll be primarily focusing on accepting and requesting ARCs of LGBTQ+ YA, MG, picture books, and fantasy. At it's core, there isn't a huge change to the blog itself, just those books I discuss will be queer more often than not. This also goes for other content on the blog besides reviews; I'll be solely focusing on queer books the majority of the time.
But it's not going to be a only queer focused, for a few reasons. There are a number of authors whose work I love that write cishet books, a number of them are favourite authors. I'll still be reading and reviewing them. Plus, I have a number of ARCs on my TBR that I've accepted for review that aren't queer, and I'm going to keep my obligations to the publishers of those books, and read and review them. Adoring fantasy as I do, I may buy a few new cishet fantasy titles every now and again; however, being the slow reader that I am, if I don't review them, there will probably be gaps in my posting, so I'm likely to review them, too. There will definitely be a kind of transition period where I'm still reading a mix while I catch up on my cishet TBR, too. But I want to prioritise queer books, and slowly, over time, you'll see the majority of the books I review will be queer. The same can be said for my content on Instagram, and for what I discuss on Twitter.
Once Upon a Bookcase has been around for 13 years. That's a lot of reviews, and other content. I won't be starting afresh and scrapping everything. This blog has grown and changed as I have, and I like seeing where I've taken in. However, to make things easier, I now have two pages for my reviews. I have a page for reviews of LGBTQ+ books and books by queer authors, and a page for reviews of cishet books, so readers can find my reviews of the kind of books they're looking for easier.
For my current readers, perhaps you're not quite the right audience for a mainly-queer focused book blog. Perhaps you'll decide to stop following. That's fair enough. Thank you for reading my blog for however long you have. To those of you who decide to stick around, thank you! To my new readers who will be visiting my blog because it will become more queer focused, hi! I look forward to discussing queer books with you! And to any publishers reading, I have updated my review policy to reflect these changes to my blog. I really look forward to working with you to promote your queer titles.
I'm really looking forward to taking Once Upon a Bookcase down this new path and seeing where it leads. And I hope you'll join me on it.
We are getting such a range of LGBTQ+ stories now, across a range of genres, and there's so much to read! I've also found that I'm generally drawn to queer fiction over cishet fiction. And with the work I'm doing at the bookshop I work at on the permanent LGBTQ+ YA section, the permanent LGBTQ+ YA & MG table, and LGBTQ+ books in the Children's Department as a whole, I'm so hugely passionate about these books, and that passion has me wanting to do more. To shout about them loudly outside of work more. To read more widely, to highlight them here, to help, in another way, queer readers find the right books for them.
So what will this actually look like? I adore YA and fantasy, as regular readers will know, so I'll more often be focusing on those with queer content. But I'll also be reviewing queer middle grade and picture books, and occassionally some adult romance. I'll be primarily focusing on accepting and requesting ARCs of LGBTQ+ YA, MG, picture books, and fantasy. At it's core, there isn't a huge change to the blog itself, just those books I discuss will be queer more often than not. This also goes for other content on the blog besides reviews; I'll be solely focusing on queer books the majority of the time.
But it's not going to be a only queer focused, for a few reasons. There are a number of authors whose work I love that write cishet books, a number of them are favourite authors. I'll still be reading and reviewing them. Plus, I have a number of ARCs on my TBR that I've accepted for review that aren't queer, and I'm going to keep my obligations to the publishers of those books, and read and review them. Adoring fantasy as I do, I may buy a few new cishet fantasy titles every now and again; however, being the slow reader that I am, if I don't review them, there will probably be gaps in my posting, so I'm likely to review them, too. There will definitely be a kind of transition period where I'm still reading a mix while I catch up on my cishet TBR, too. But I want to prioritise queer books, and slowly, over time, you'll see the majority of the books I review will be queer. The same can be said for my content on Instagram, and for what I discuss on Twitter.
Once Upon a Bookcase has been around for 13 years. That's a lot of reviews, and other content. I won't be starting afresh and scrapping everything. This blog has grown and changed as I have, and I like seeing where I've taken in. However, to make things easier, I now have two pages for my reviews. I have a page for reviews of LGBTQ+ books and books by queer authors, and a page for reviews of cishet books, so readers can find my reviews of the kind of books they're looking for easier.
For my current readers, perhaps you're not quite the right audience for a mainly-queer focused book blog. Perhaps you'll decide to stop following. That's fair enough. Thank you for reading my blog for however long you have. To those of you who decide to stick around, thank you! To my new readers who will be visiting my blog because it will become more queer focused, hi! I look forward to discussing queer books with you! And to any publishers reading, I have updated my review policy to reflect these changes to my blog. I really look forward to working with you to promote your queer titles.
I'm really looking forward to taking Once Upon a Bookcase down this new path and seeing where it leads. And I hope you'll join me on it.
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