Monday, September 8, 2008

Those Who Cannot Find History with Relatable Characters Are Doomed to Reject It

What is your opinion on the current market for historicals? Is a writer more apt to attract a publisher or an agent with a historical novel?
There's more publishing in occult topics right now. But there's always room for more historical fiction, as long as it's aimed well at its audience. Consider A Northern Light and The Luxe.

7 comments:

eluper said...

Everyone told me to avoid historical fiction because no one is buying it right now. Well, I'm always one to see advice like that as a challenge. So, my second YA novel is historical fiction.

And FSG bought it!

It comes out in July of 2009 and it's called BUG BOY. Horseracing, very bad people, a girl and a monkey. What could be better?

Do not be put off by what people are telling you about the marketplace. Write what speaks to you. What is selling today might NOT be selling next year when you're ready to submit.

Judy said...

I sold my book KNOWING JOSEPH, which is about autism, AFTER an agent announced at a conference that no one was buying them now, because there were too many coming on the market.

So, yeah, write what speaks to you. You never know when it will also speak to an editor.

Anonymous said...

"Write what speaks to you. What is selling today might NOT be selling next year when you're ready to submit."

So true. I do think these agently/editorial pronouncements are a bit like share tips in the newspapers: by the time the average joe is reading them, they're long past any value.

"So, yeah, write what speaks to you. You never know when it will also speak to an editor."

And your best chance of writing something which speaks to an editor is to have followed your instincts about what you really want to write. You can sell anything, if you write it well enough (though if it's something that the trade's currently gloomy about, that might have to be very well indeed. But when did know that stop us?)

Anonymous said...

But can the LUXE really be used as an example in this case? It's a packaged book created to make money like the Gossip Girls series, not an independent, single author title, yes?

miguelsmith7th said...

I think that the best book to write right now would be a fiction or a science fiction book. The only historical books that i think do well are books about famous people and political people, mostly people who have a disease or fought and one agoinst an illness of some sort.

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