BOoOoOoOoOoOoNE!

Hello fellow book fanartists! I had some thoughts the other day, along the lines of: 

I wish there was more fanart for xyz diverse/queer books!

There must be more artists that consistently do fanart for books that don’t have much/any fanart, but I can only think of a handful….

I should organise a zine specifically for fanart of diverse books that don’t have any fanart!

I have never even been in a zine, let alone organised one…..maybe not….

Anyway, I don’t think a zine is the way to start but…..something? a hashtag? a monthly challenge thing? A twitter/tumblr account to reblog stuff?  Even just finding more fanartists I don’t know about would be cool tbh! (this applies more to twitter/instagram, rather than tumblr where it’s somewhat easier to check tags)  If designers, people who make edits, bloggers, fic writers, wanted to get in on this somehow i’d be into that too!!

Whatever it is, I’d want it to focus on books where the main character/s are canonically queer, trans, poc, not just major side characters or subtext. Also books by ownvoices/marginalised authors - I do notice that the most popular m/m books that have a lot of fanart are ones written by white women, rather than ownvoices m/m books (especially those by poc), for example . (I’m not hating on people who do fanart for those books either - just pointing it out!)

Actually, I drafted this post ages ago and have just been too busy to do anything with it, but I decided to make a twitter (currently @diversebookart) for retweeting art on there - so that exists, at the very least! Keen for other things to happen if other people are keen to, though! (and if you post your book fanart on twitter please @ it to me so I can rt it!)

I’ve also definitely noticed in the last couple years that tumblr isn’t the best place for book fanart unless it’s got a pretty big fandom - which is generally not the books I’m talking about here. And on twitter and stuff, it’s rarely tagged and gets lost after a few days. I definitely understand having more motivation to do art of more popular things, especially for those of us who are freelancing (and getting more attention on social media can be really important for), but maybe a hashtag could help that stuff not get like, seen by the author + a handful of people and then nothing after a week. idk. Basically I want to do something that a) creates more fanart for books that don’t have it and b) boosts artists work when we make it! No like, obligation to do certain art of certain things

I’m posting this here because I don’t have any other blog for this sort of thing, but I’ll definitely talk about it on twitter (@layahimalaya and @aroaessidhe are my art and fandom accounts, but also @diversebookart since I’ve made that now) 

Anyway!!! This is just some thoughts, but if anyone else has some thoughts, let me know???? I could make a group chat on twitter, or maybe a discord server, if people are into that. I tagged a bunch of people off the top of my head (& also looking through art i’ve rebblogged) who either have done book fanart of some books with barely any fanart, or some people who do fanart of more popular but still diverse books. Some people who only do like 5% book fanart, too. Feel free to ignore this if you want and also tell me if I missed anyone obvious!!!

EDIT: I also made a discord, which is here, and a tumblr: @diversebookfanart

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