Overt Representation and Subtle Clues A Study of Queer Book Descriptions in English, Croatian, and Serbian

Most commonly, a book description is the first contact one has with the contents of a book. It is the elevator pitch on the back of the book or the Amazon page that tries to sell you your next read among literally millions of competitors. In book publishing terms, a book description is a piece of metadata that follows the book throughout its marketing life. It is usually a one to three paragraph description of the book, including the setting, main characters, and some (spoiler-free) plot summary, but also usually includes themes and tone, comparative titles, and potentially author background and accolades. Overall, it is the main piece of metadata that makes it all the way to the ultimate customer, that is, the reader. When it comes to readers who seek out queer books, the book description can be what makes a reader pause and say oh, this book is for me. Note: as a member of the community, I feel that “queer” is the concise, broadly encapsulating term that my peers use to define themselves, and this is the term I will use throughout my paper. Feel free to substitute LGBTQ+ or another preferred term if you desire. This research aims to analyze what are the common features in book descriptions that clue a reader into the queer content, whether those features are overt or subtle. What initially motivated me to pursue this research was a passing comment from a successful literary agent of children’s and YA books that agencies “don’t even try” to sell the rights to books with queer characters or themes in Eastern Europe (mainly Poland and Russia). This prompted me to think about my personal experience living in the western Balkans (Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina), where there has been a significant, overall positive, shift in the acceptance of queer identities in the last decade or so. I wanted to know whether it was true that queer books weren’t sold in Eastern Europe, and immediately realized the landscape was richer than I expected, so I shifted from asking if queer books are sold in the Balkans to how they are sold.