This is a great little article for those
who don’t quite get indie publishing, or folks who are thinking about looking into it.
You can read the full article HERE.
It’s true that the indie publishing
community is producing work that is equal in quality and artistic value to
anything put out by the big publishing houses. In countries like the US, indie
author/publishers have gained wide acceptance. At the London Book Fair this
Spring, indie authors had some of the spotlight too! These are very exciting
times.
I have to admit that, in the past, I saw
indie, or rather ‘self-publishing’ as something of a cop-out, the realm of the
failed. It is obvious now that that is an out-dated point of view. For several
years I was going the recommended route of querying literary agents whom I was
told I needed because they were the only way I could get published.
I sent loads of queries out to agents who
said that they represented historical fiction, including agents who represented authors I
read and respected.
Many agents got back to me with great
feedback. I was told by numerous folks that they “loved the story and the
characters”, that my “research and historical detail were fantastic”. I was
told that they loved “my voice and writing style”. It was all great stuff but at the
end of the day, the same answers always came back.
“Times are tough,” and “no publisher is
going to take a chance on a debut historical novelist in this economy.” I was
told that they liked the book but didn’t “know how to place it.”
My personal favourite was “The story sounds
fantastic but you don’t have a marquee character. People would rather read the
thousandth novel about Julius Caesar than the first book about an emperor they
know nothing about.”
I was left scratching my head. I may not
have had a so-called ‘marquee character’ but I certainly have a marquee period.
The Roman Empire and so many other periods
in history all make for exciting settings for fiction. And oftentimes, stories
about average people in any age are among the most poignant.
This is where indie publishing becomes the
historical novelist’s best strategy.
Never mind all the stuff about maintaining
artistic control and keeping up to 85% of your profits, releasing whenever you
like and as often as you like. That stuff is great.
The indie author of historical fiction has
the power to bring to light people and places that are often overlooked by the
mainstream, and if their research is careful and accurate, they can add to our
knowledge.
You can explore religious practices that
big publishers would not want their names associated with, or you could write
alternate history to explore various theories. How about a book in which
Carthage won the Punic war and salted the earth about the Seven Hills of Rome?
Or how about further exploring the idea of empire by imagining that Alexander
the Great did not die in Babylon but moved west all the way to the Pillars of
Hercules?
If you are indie, you can do it.
Yes, you have to know your market and be
smart about it. You need to write for you, but also for your readership.
The point is that you can if you have a will to. I find it hard to believe that people
interested in historical fiction only want to read about Julius Caesar or Henry
Tudor. Sure, they are magnificent characters of history but so are many other
people and places.
This is indeed an exciting time for indie
authors and publishers, but it is also an exciting time for readers.
In these days of freedom of artistic
expression, there is more choice than ever.
So, thanks for reading and whichever book
you pick up next, may it be full of adventure, inspiration and all the other
things that make historical fiction a wonderful journey.
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