Looking at our new lists, you'll see right away that the caliber of titles being published has been vastly improved,” says Don Weise, who in slightly less than a year as the publisher of Alyson Books has revitalized a once-thriving gay and lesbian house—a company with a lengthy pedigree that was slowly reducing its annual title output and also losing its readership and reputation. “While Alyson has a long, respected history as the publisher of gay and lesbian books, it hasn't always been the leader it should have been,” explains Weise. “For years we published too much genre fiction and anthologies on dating and dogs and ex-boyfriends. There's an audience for these books, naturally, but readers want—and deserve—more from us. I had this foremost in mind when I came on board.”

From 2003 to 2007, Weise was senior editor at Carroll & Graf, where he demonstrated his taste and acumen by publishing such titles as the New York Times bestseller Beyond the Down Low; Dennis Cooper's Lambda Award—winning novel, The Sluts; and adult film superstar Aiden Shaw's bestselling memoir, My Undoing, among others. “Carroll & Graf was my first New York publishing job, and overnight it opened the door to the literary scene in ways that were unimaginable before I left San Francisco. After 10 years in the business in California I felt stalled,” he says.

Asked to pinpoint the single biggest change at the new Alyson, Weise cites “the breadth and quality of our list.” The authors the house has recently published (or has under contract) include Edmund White, Christopher Bram (Gods and Monsters), Christopher Isherwood, Samuel R. Delany and Staceyann Chin. While Alyson's list is “all over the map”—doing everything from Paul Russell's new novel about Nabokov's gay brother to zombie erotica and true-crime reportage on straight men who kill the gay men who love them—what unites them, says Weise, is the quality of writing. “There's room for everyone. I can say that honestly because I acquire everything we publish.” In fact, he's almost a one-man band: Alyson's Chelsea office houses Weise and one assistant. And his new position isn't without its drawbacks. “I have to answer to the money people like everyone else, but no one is looking over my shoulder asking why I'm publishing, say, a lesbian cancer memoir that talks a lot about Proust. I think Mary Cappello's Called Back is important and unlike anything I've read, so we did it.” Alyson was acquired last summer by Here Media Inc. (formerly Regent Media), whose owners give Weise a “terrific amount of freedom. Without it we would never have turned the company around so quickly.”

But despite his confident and optimistic outlook, Weise is realistic about both the present and the future: “Like everyone else, we face a tough retail market where all year orders and returns haven't been what they should be. At the same time we've so far hit or exceeded most fall/winter projections, and the return rate has finally come way down. While nothing is booming, books are finding their audience.” Building up Alyson's Web traffic through online video, newsletters and banner ads, and publisher interviews has helped drive sales.

Still, Weise says he's asked, even by gay people, whether the need for gay book publishers has been outgrown. “I answer that two ways. First, straight people for the most part don't have a grasp of our lives. While they can be responsible for some very good gay books, they tend to follow hot topics or chase celebrities, without going outside the predictable, where most of us actually live our lives. As a gay man, I not only know what our community cares about, including what's off the radar, I also know what communities within the larger community care about. Secondly and more to the point, every book of nonfiction I publish wherein someone who's not out is identified as gay must be vetted by a lawyer. We can debate political advances forever, but so long as we live in a world where you can be sued simply for calling someone gay, we need gay publishers to help lead us toward enlightenment. I'm not going to count on that as coming automatically from any other quarter of publishing.”

Profile
Name: Don Weise

Age: 43

Company: Alyson Books

Title: Publisher

First job: Emergency room orderly, which prepared me for the life and death drama of publishing.

Publishing in the future will be… as exciting as ever. While the technology will evolve, the pleasure of a good read will remain the same.