Regent Media Is Holding My New Book Hostage

I know I wrote one, but I can't find it anywhere

Comments (0) By Michael Musto Wednesday, Aug 18 2010

Even more amusingly, the Advocate wanted to do a story about me, and the assigned writer asked, "Could you send me a review copy?" They're part of the same company as Alyson and even they didn't know things had stalled worse than John McCain's career? Wow, the saving-face thing was really working.

By now, I had risen above it all by putting all my energy into my anniversary bash and making it a smash event filled with solvent entrepreneurs. A month later, I noticed that Amazon was now listing June 1 as the pub date for my silently rotting book. Could it be? Nah—that came and went without a peep, and anyone who'd ordered the thing, thanks to my lavish Times profile way back in February, had surely canceled it by now anyway. Talk about lost momentum. By the time Amazon listed the pub date as August 4, I was ready to slash my wrists because, in some ways, I didn't even want this to come out anymore! And it didn't! It's now slated for October 1!

Jason Levesque

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Over at Out and Advocate, some workers don't mind enabling the screwing—"I just like writing the articles"—but just as often, the battle cry has been "I want my money!," said with a ferocity that's turned freelancers into collection agencies.

But the good news is that the gay-on-gay shrieking seems to be working more often than before. I've just heard about some aggrieved writers who've been paid in full and one paid in semi-, so either things are getting a little bit brighter or there's an emergency fund somewhere under the rainbow. Gay publishing might be able to keep limping along after all, as long as it doesn't add to its own oppression with more bullshit and evasion.

Meanwhile, the word in Chelsea is that the head of Alyson is trying to buy Regent from the inside, in hopes of finally releasing all those titles from the gay hostage crisis. I'm planning a gala book party as we speak. That's the company line.

musto@villagevoice.com