Finding a Home for Asian Fantasy and Fiction

The Beginning

Hi, everyone. I’m Wera, but most know me when I wrote under my former pen name, Luli Xú on Wattpad. I started writing stories when I was eight years old, but it had always been a hobby. Writing became a coping method for my traumatic past as it provided me a means to express myself without exposing who I am. There’s a significant stigma around mental health, especially coming from an Asian family with traditional values. However, that’s another story.

I’m here today to talk about the difficulties in finding a home for Asian Fantasy and Fiction. As some may know, I didn’t start out as a fantasy author. I began my journey writing anime fanfiction and it evolved into original work as I began to wonder what it would be like to read stories that explored lesser known Asian mythologies or were told from characters I could easily relate to. That’s how I came up with The Secrets of Tarot Series and Any Way the Wind Blows.

A Celestial Requiem, Book 1 of The Secrets of Tarot Series began as a series of one-shots, each referencing something difficult I experienced in real life. I wanted to feature a character of Asian origin because at the time, I didn’t see many stories on online serialization sites like Wattpad. And so, I began to wonder what it would be like to read stories that combined different mythologies, but featured a WOC protagonist because that’s what I wanted to read in the industry but couldn’t quite find.

I started writing A Celestial Requiem back in 2018 as part of NaNoWriMo. It was a hot mess as I struggled with finding a way to convey all my ideas in ways that didn’t overwhelm the reader, but also to stay true to my story since that’s what it was based on. Never did I expect it to win the 2019 Watty Awards.

Receiving Good News

When I received a private message from the official Wattys account on September 30, 2019, I thought it was a practical joke and someone was pretending to be the Wattys account just to hack into your account or to troll. But when I clicked on their profile and saw that orange verified sticker, I knew it was the real deal.

The first thing I did was call my mom. Ever since I started writing, she always reminded me that writing wouldn’t pay the bills and I shouldn’t rely on it as my sole income. She was determined to have me go to law school. And that was in the cards a couple years ago when I fell in love with intellectual property law. But sadly and to my mom’s disappointment, I didn’t pursue it further because I discovered a greater love: cyber crime analysis.

My mom was in shocked and immediately asked to see proof of the win, especially considering the book that won was unfinished, at nearly 31,000 words. She asked me what I won and all I could say was that I would be invited to their exclusive author program, the Wattpad Stars, and a certificate signed by Wattpad’s CEO. At the time, I didn’t think much of the fact that Wattpad Stars would be a dead end for me, and that they couldn’t be bothered to put my name or the name of my book on the certificate. I thought things would change and my popularity would go up because everyone always mentioned that the Wattys were a start.

My Journey on Wattpad

After the first week, I struggled with the newfound fame, though short-lived. More people messaged me to congratulate me, others took to my books and message board to advertise their works or post hateful comments because they were upset they didn’t win or didn’t want to take the time to read the first chapter.

It was surreal and I thought things would get better. They didn’t.

Months passed and I went through three drafts of A Celestial Requiem. With Wattpad, you had to be approached for opportunities, instead of sending inquiry after inquiry. And during this time, I hoped it would be picked up by Wattpad Studios and turned into a drama with all of my favorite Chinese actors, or published traditionally at the very least.

Books that entered the Wattys were not permitted to be taken down for querying. We were bound, and still are for every Wattys we enter, by a contract that forced us to maintain exclusivity. I counted down the months, polishing my story as best as I could with the help of my beta readers and critique partners, while trying to maintain an audience with new work.

When I got an email from Wattpad HQ asking if I was still interested in having A Celestial Requiem assessed for opportunities, I jumped at the opportunity. I waited patiently, hoping something would happen. Then I got the email that changed everything.

Hello LuliWrites,

Your story A Celestial Requiem has been assessed by our Internal Content Team and we wanted to pass along their feedback to you. Currently, after their review, they are not going to pitch this story to the Paid Stories Program at this time. They listed your story’s primary issue as:

“Market Needs — Your story is excellent. It’s just not a story our Internal Content Team is either currently looking for, or currently able to market effectively. It may be too niche, or not niche enough. It may contain content that could be considered problematic by readers in your genre. It might be comparable to something else that’s already been scheduled for acquisition and release. You don’t need to work on any specific element of this story — it’s just not something our Internal Content Team are currently looking for right now. We’ll keep it at the top of our lists though, and we’ll be sure to pitch it the moment it is!”

To be totally clear: this is not a rejection in the traditional sense. Your story will still be considered for other opportunities as they come up (Studios, Books, Partners, etc.), and your story will be pitched to Paid the moment the market shifts in its favour (and this does happen, reader patterns shift all the time).

I’ll admit that the rejection stung. And what troubled me most was the vague rejection email. We’re not always going to get personalized rejection, but this one was the most confusing. It made it felt like my story didn’t matter, I didn’t matter. And it also made it feel as though those moments of waiting for the exclusivity period to end wasn’t worth it.

As more time passed, I saw the lack of diversity throughout their Paid catalog and the homepage. And I started to hate myself more and more because I almost put out a story that fit their trends, but made me miserable about writing. Books that featured POC protagonists were only featured during select months (we’re not a trend, so why should we be treated as such?) like Black History Month or AAPI Month.

I felt like I was fighting a losing battle, trying to get Asian Fantasy’s name out on Wattpad and trying to change a system that was so resistant to change. I met with Wattpad HQ during their office hours, and many people voiced their opinions. They reassured us change would come, but we didn’t see change for another year.

Now in 2022, they finally released an AAPI Heritage Month, but changed the title to API Month and released it on May 16th, nearly over halfway through the month. When I look back at the miscommunication, or abundant lack thereof, I realize I made the right decision to leave Wattpad’s author program. My decision to remain as a volunteer Ambassador for the company is strictly for ensuring Asian Fantasy always has a home on Wattpad, even if it seems like the odds are stacked against us.

The Querying Trenches

I entered the querying trenches after I received the blanket rejection from Wattpad. It was several months of back and forths with many agents, with some requesting fulls and others not wanting to pursue past the initial pitch. I would purposely reach out to agents who actually wanted to review POC #ownvoices fantasy rather than those who just said they wanted to, instead of actually pursuing it.

Some of those agents included those who represented Katie Zhao, Chloe Gong, and Dustin Thao. Seeing their books getting published inspired me to pursue a role in traditional publishing because I saw more and more books based in Asian Fantasy were getting traction.

But I hated how writing was turning into a job rather than a way for me to escape reality. I spent more time preparing query letters and revising my pitches than writing itself.

And so, I decided to turn to self-publishing.

My Journey as an Indie Author

As an indie author, I have found a balance between work, school, and writing (and I’m super excited to write more after the graduation ceremony this weekend). I had creative control over my content and future ideas. I still turn to beta readers and critique partners to review my work, but I like being able to say I’m proud to write what I write and I have fun doing it.

To this day, I currently write for Radish Fiction and Kindle Vella. Radish Fiction appears to have more promotional opportunities for diverse works, but the only caveat is that you need a clickbait cover to get discovered. I don’t know about you, the reader, but I’d prefer to keep my covers devoid of male abs. My mom and her friends read my stories, so if they saw that, I’d never hear the end of it.

Kindle Vella proves to be nice for some monthly bonuses, but the discoverability is flawed. I recommend avoiding posting all your chapters at once, but scheduling weekly updates to ensure you’re getting the minimum monthly bonus, even if it’s miniscule. But no one really comments or likes the story unless you have some clickbait smut preview image (which by the way is inconvenient because of the way they have the covers cropped).

And when you finish publishing a story on Kindle Vella, you can transfer it to Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) as an eBook or paperback (and now hardcover, though it’s in beta still).

KDP, Barnes and Noble Press, and Kobo have been the divine trifecta for me. Why? It allows me to self-publish my books on my own timeline. I can hold my book in my hand and prove to my traditional Thai mother that I accomplished something she thought would never amount to anything. Although there have been some starter costs for each book, I don’t regret becoming an indie author as it’s allowed me to forge connections with other indie authors, who specialize in Asian Fantasy and Fiction, either through various Discord servers, Twitter, and Facebook groups.

While I am grateful for Wattpad introducing me to some wonderful friends and helping me get initially discovered, I learned it is not the ideal environment for Asian Fantasy and Fiction. What makes it so? The tags seem to be eternally broken, there’s rampant theft going on for mirror sites like Novel HD, and stories get rejected before they get the chance to prove they can become something.

Everyone has their preferences, but everyone’s book also has a home. It took me three years to find mine. The moral of this story is to not give up and to keep an open mind. Although my books aren’t smut heavy compared to most books on Radish, Any Way the Wind Blows has found a home there.

Don’t give up until you find a suitable home for each book and don’t settle for less.