The paper traces its origins to the monthly newsletter of the Queen City Quordinators, a Charlotte LGBT organization, which they began publishing in 1983.

Besides its hometown of Charlotte, it is distributed in Asheville, Chapel Hill; Columbia; Durham; Greensboro; Greenville; Raleigh; Wilmington, Winston-Salem and more.

The paper also has distribution points and subscribers in Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, Washington, D.C. and West Virginia.

[8] The newspaper is also published online, with daily news updates, event calendars and community resource listings.

[11] The new incarnation of the almost decade-old website featured daily news updates and staff blogs and allowed reader comments to be posted to any story.

In September 2021, the newspaper launched QnotesCarolinas.com, as a new online hub of local LGBTQ news, voices and community information.

Chris Crain, former editor of The Washington Blade criticized Q-Notes coverage as it did not include information that the interviews had been conducted via email.

In October 2009, Q-Notes announced it would stop distribution of its print edition to most regions in South Carolina.

In a letter from publisher Jim Yarbrough, the newspaper said it would concentrate most South Carolina print copies in the state capital of Columbia.

Our bi-weekly print issues will be more future-oriented and contain less reporting of events past, while GoQnotes.com takes up a more robust daily presence with online only reporting of Carolinas, national and international events and news...In an effort to maintain our new, robust website and editorial direction, qnotes will be implementing a sort of "web first" model.