Dispatches From the Badlands
I consider trading my querying banner for an indie-pub pike as I seek shelter in the publishing wilds
Dispatches
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Entry #5 in my ‘Dispatches’ series of updates on personal writing projects.
Writing Whirlwinds at the Edge
The past month or so has been a bit chaotic. On the professional writing side, I’ve had some unexpected freelance contracts come in, which I’m quite excited about.
A few weeks back, my wife and I also took a trip to Europe (yes, it was expensive, yes, it was worth it, no, I won’t show you pictures here —but keep an eye on the featured photos of my stories and you might get lucky). That was awesome, but somewhat tiring, to be sure.
And then there’s been writing — my creative projects. And those have felt the most unsteady, and thrilling, of all.
Pivoting Publication Strategies
Late this past March, I began a submission effort for my fantasy novel, Coalescence, per my wife’s nudging. It’d been a long time since I tried something like that, and she was right to say that giving Coalescence its best shot meant taking the next step.
As far as I’ve been concerned — for a long time — that only meant querying.
Querying — Rations Grow Thin
If you’re unfamiliar, querying refers to a submission process targeted at literary agents. When I finished my first novel, Black Box, this was what many online resources told me was the next step toward its publication:
‘If you want a novel to be published — like, on Barnes & Noble shelves with a hardcover and good promotion and it’ll ‘make you lots of money’ sorta thing— you have to find a literary agent. Then, they’ll shop it out to major publishers.’
I.e., you can’t just submit to a publisher outright, so you have to go through an agent. Of course, that process isn’t easy, and that much is to be expected, but I think I was unaware of just how difficult it might be.
Long story short, I’ve learned a lot in my attempts to query my first two books. And by ‘learned a lot’, I mean I’ve ‘made a lot of mistakes.’
Mistakes in writing my query letter (a cover letter that’s specific to this process), formatting my manuscript, submitting to the wrong agents, submitting to too few agents, submitting before the manuscript had received some final polish, and on, and on…
But I think the biggest mistake I’ve made this far might have been only querying literary agents to begin with.
I’ll explain more of this as we go, but before I do — none of what I’ll say is to write off traditional publication options entirely. It’s just to reckon with how difficult the process is, and where I might fit (or not fit) into it.
Even though my querying efforts haven’t been ‘successful’ thus far, I also can’t say that they’ve been an unworthy effort in terms of my development as a writer — as an effort in the task of writing, all this trouble was worth it, even if I don’t have a hardback bestseller to show for it. Many mistakes and rejections later, I’m now a better writer, and perhaps a better salesman of my work than I was to begin with — all that is good.
But to get back to it, people tell you to query your novel if you want it published. The obvious alternative, of course, is self-publishing, which is all well and good (this has been a strong prospect for Coalescence and its sequels since their conception, and continues to be).
But the gap between those two options feels so wide. Too wide.
Traditional publication (the querying route) feels like banging on the door of a medieval keep, asking for shelter from a lord over which you have little sway. You must gussy yourself up in respectable garb, bring great gifts to their court, and inquire whether there is a seat at their table. But you are not a lord yourself, so this can be very difficult.
On the other end, self-publishing feels like creating a shelter in the woods with no building materials to be seen. You have little-to-no friends or neighbors to ask for aid (some of which you’d rather not help build your house to begin with, even if they offered), so you go about scrounging for fallen branches, pine cones, and logs too heavy for your mettle, hoping to build something respectable. Can you? Sure. Will you? Who knows, knave.
Isn’t there something in the middle? Is it possible that some verdant middle ground, where shelter is to be had and land is to be claimed without depending entirely upon a feudal lord or carving a dugout with your own hands?
Yep. The answer is yep.
Indie Publishers — Brigands in the Undergrowth
Thanks to an absolutely enlightening conversation with a local writing partner (Find writing partners! In the name of all that is good and holy find them and write with them! Heed me! They’re out there, and they need you just as much as you need them! Hark! Hark! Hark!), a third option has entered the fray.
In the space between the well-stocked keeps and the self-made makers, the conclaves. The collectives. The brigands.
Indie publishers consist of very small, ragtag presses who publish stories with a discerning eye, though not necessarily an eye for the ‘traditional market’.
Indie publishers fill the gap, publishing stories that have quality, even if no proven home. Experimental literature. Outsider lit. Or, otherwise, stories that aren’t so ‘innovative’ but still, for whatever reason, don’t have a ready-made slot on most Barnes & Noble shelves.
You don’t have to go through an agent (though you can), and the manuscript submission process is much like that of querying. And in the end, your novel is published — perhaps it’s a digital-first release, and perhaps it doesn’t get into Barnes & Noble, but in the end, it’s given a little more tender loving care than you could manage all on your own.
In my eyes, Coalescence and its series, The Orandreon Cycle, may not be a traditional querying home run, no matter how polished or seamless my query letter gets. The stories themselves weren’t built for that from the get go, I don’t think— that, I might be alright with.
For one thing, I fear they’re a little too on the ‘traditional’ side of fantasy (which was always the intention) to find purchase with any agent hoping for something truly ‘fresh’ in the genre…which, if Manuscript Wishlist’s many posts are to be trusted, feels like most of them.
But there are small fantasy/sci-fi presses out there who may be a better fit. After the preliminary research I’ve conducted over the past several weeks, that is, at least, the hope. So the next few weeks will be a bit more research on that front, marking my calendars for open submission dates from each press, and loosing the volley.
Self-Publishing — What Sort of House Can I Build?
And if I can’t publish my book with an indie publisher I’ll be very sad and quit.
Of course not.
I admit, I worry I’m doing too much to talk up indie publishing and talk ‘down’ the traditional querying process here, but the truth of the matter isn’t so clear or severe.
I know there are literary agents out there who — that most, if not all, literary agents out there — want more than anything to find and champion good stories. And I know that it’d be foolish to put too much weight on the prospects of indie publication, as even the preliminary research I’ve done has produced a little less than I’ve hoped for on terms of ‘great fits’ for Coalescence.
So even with this discovery of a new ‘middle ground’, the roster of options remains small. But the future is not dim. When I originally set out to write this novel (and it’s sequel, halfway-drafted), I hoped that it would be more publication friendly than my first, of course, but that was in a general, nebulous sense.
All I knew was that fantasy, even of the high- or epic- kind, had a better overall market than Black Box, a ‘literary thriller’, might. And self-publishing, in particular, was always in the picture.
So it remains.
Self-publishing also opens unique doors. As Coalescence’s world originated as a Dungeons & Dragons setting, I have plenty of D&D related resources (a player’s handbook, copious maps, new creatures and campaigns ranging from small to pretty big), that I’ve long been interested in publishing alongside the novel.
But how would I get a publisher (or an agent, for that matter) interested in that? I’m not sure. So I might do it myself.
So if indie publication efforts don’t work out, self-publication wouldn’t just mean the grueling shack-building effort I originally described. It would mean freedom to create, and publish, something quite unique, this ‘game-centric’ prospect that I’ve had in mind since the story began.
That remains quite exciting.
Meanwhile, A Return to (Short) Form
As I await responses from the queries I’ve already sent out and continue my exploration of indie pub opportunities, I’m taking a break from drafting Coalescence’s sequel (working title, Attunement), to dip my toes back into short story writing, poetry writing, and so on.
This has been so much fun.
Don’t get me wrong, writing Attunement has also been a blast, but the querying and submission slog overall has taken a lot of energy.
Writing shorter pieces has been revitalizing. Something about getting a concept out in short order has felt so freeing, has given faster, more frequent gratification than novel writing might.
The only trick is figuring out which stories deserve ‘their due.’ I have plenty of ideas on the backburner/in various stages of outlining for larger, more intensive future projects.
But which of those big ideas would be better as a short story? On the other hand, which of the one-line short story concepts in my ideas journal deserve to be larger, more intensive projects instead?
This is tough to discern, but the best way to find out is to just write the thing and see when I have to stop. In plenty of cases, it feels gratifying to get to the end of a story, where the characters have lived a full life in only a few pages.
But in a select few, those lives have further to go (Coalescence, for instance, started as an isolated scene with no room for growth…then turned into three…and then some).
That’s been the question, and the joy, of my prose writing lately, coupled with the edifying, beautiful-in-and-of-itself act of poetry writing. As a result, my creative time over the past several weeks has felt more satisfying than I could have hoped, querying efforts, mistakes, and realizations notwithstanding.
Moving Forward
‘Dispatches’ was originally meant to relate only to The Orandreon Cycle as my major WIP. But I quite like it as a series title for any personal/project/publishing updates. So perhaps that name should stick…
Anywho, don’t be surprised if ‘Dispatches’ come your way with no Coaelescence news for a while, or if they come in a different form/under a different name altogether.
If you’re looking for more on indie publishing, trad publishing, and self publishing in the meantime, here are some resources I think you’ll get a kick out of.
- T. J. Brearton’s piece on Indie Publishing was a breath of fresh air, partially inspiring this update
- Formatting legend William Shunn (you should probably default to his guidelines when submitting manuscripts, novels, stories, or poetry. Took me way…way too long to learn that) wrote my favorite Medium series on self-publishing
- An overview of traditional publishing for non-fiction and fiction from Kitiara Pascoe
Thanks for reading!
