Decisions, Decisions, Decisions…

Fall is upon us. I don’t know how that happened – just yesterday was the first day of spring, wasn’t it?

I’ve had a busy but refreshing summer, and I’m looking forward to getting back at the desk and back to work on my novel revisions.

I’ve sent out my MS to a couple more agents and publishers, but no one is knocking at the door yet. I’m sure I’m going about this all wrong. I should be sending out dozens of queries at a time, not just a couple. But seeing as it is probably non-productive to send out queries to agents that don’t want to represent a historical fantasy trilogy set in Dark Ages Britain I’ve tried to limit my queries to agents that I think just might be interested. And there aren’t that many of those, it seems. Of course if you are one of those agents and are reading this, let’s talk. 😉

In my research I’ve found that lots of agents don’t want fantasies set in medieval times (and even though mine is not technically medieval, it would still get tarred with that brush). Especially those set in Europe/Britain. If my book was set in  medieval Japan or Africa, well, maybe I might get in the door. They are looking for the next “thing”, not the old “thing”. There seems to be a feeling that fantasies with a European setting are yesterday’s news.

Historical fantasy is also a narrow field. Unless you are looking at steampunk, which is a genre all its own, it’s hard to find a niche of books including fantastical elements set in a real-world historical setting. It’s not impossible, mind you, but difficult. Which means that not a lot of agents are looking for these books, either.

Elves are also “yesterday”. Even though my take on the Fey is different from most of the stories out there, the agents/publishers have to actually read the book to understand that. Right now they just see “Fey” in my proposals/query letters and their eyes glaze over. I think.

And the fact that my main character is a person of faith whose struggles to reconcile a faith in a good God with all the bad that is happening in his life (including demons chasing him to 643 AD) probably knocks it off quite a few more agent’s acquistion lists. Unless you are making fun of Christianity or making it responsible for all the bad in the world in your novel, agents and publishers aren’t interested. Ok, I might be exaggerating that a bit but it sure feels like that some days.

So….okay. I suppose I could spend another year sending out the MS, but time is a-wasting. I’ve already spent many years of my life on this project, and I’m getting impatient to get to the next step. Which is to actually get it in front of some readers. Release the kraken, so to speak.

I spent a weekend in Calgary at the When Words Collide Festival again, and I sat in on quite a few presentations on self-publishing. There are pros and cons, of course, but at the moment the pros (especially the fact that by doing this I could actually get the books published!) are outweighing the cons.

So I’m getting ready to go down that path. I’ve been in contact with an editor, who will do a professional edit (both developmental and copy-edit) of my MS. Which is somewhat terrifying but I’m looking forward to it, too. I want to put the best book out there for my readers, and this will help me do that.

I’m building in time this fall to do some intensive research on the whole process of self-publishing. I could upload my book to Amazon tomorrow and start selling it right away, but realistically if I want to give myself the best chance of success I need to do some preparation. Self-publishing means that not only do I wear the “author” hat, I will also be donning the “marketing and promotion” hat, the “business plan” hat, the “book cover design” hat, and the “book distribution” hat. I have been listening to some podcasts about all these things, and I have some ideas of what I need to do, but I’m going to need a little more flesh on the bones of my plans before I can launch. I’ll be reading some books on self-publications, talking to other authors who have gone this route, getting a plan in place for both the launch and beyond. And plus, I have to keep going on Book 2 revisions.

My tentative plan is to have the book published by Christmas, but….I’m not entirely sure how realistic that will be. There’s quite a lot I need to have in place before I can jump into the fray. So, watch this space! I’ll keep you all appraised of my progress. A more realistic statement is that by this time next year, my book should be out and I’ll be well on the way to the release of Book 2.

Thanks for being with me on this journey! I’m looking forward to sharing with you a firm publication date, once I have it all figured out. In the meantime…stay tuned…..