An Indie-Author's Path to Traditional Publishing

After self-publishing my past four novels, I acquired an agent (more about this and the “How To’s” to come in a future newsletter) and from there was given the opportunity to try to traditionally publish my next novel. I have to be honest, I was a bit trepidatious at first. I love self-publishing. I love the community and the control. But I felt I would be a proper version of silly if I didn’t at least try this new path that had opened up for me. So for the better part of two years I have been writing with the goal of sending out my next book for submissions. I learned quickly that traditional publishing operates at a very different pace than self-publishing. In comparison, it is like crawling using only your pinkies to move you forward. Is this a gross over-exaggeration? Maybe. Nevertheless, it took me a year to write and edit my latest novel (the first book in a three-book fantasy standalone series, which you might know as The Mousai Series), and then six months of my agent and I submitting to Young Adult publishing houses.

During the time my book was off on submissions I started to write book two. I just hit the 70k mark when I had to put it aside to work on re-edits to book one. This is where I have been for the last six months. In the re-editing zone. Because while we were getting interest in the book, had editors who were reading and enjoying and saying wonderful things, there were no real bites. The biggest reason for this became quickly apparent. A lot of editors felt it was more adult than YA. I understood this especially after I started to write book two. And quite frankly, I was relieved.

While I love reading YA, from contemporary to fantasy to sci-fi, I had never really considered myself a YA author. Nor was I very interested in writing in that genre. In a way, this series kind of fell into that category by the constraints of traditional publishing. Which is based off the question: where will this book fit on shelves? If you’ve read any of my work, you’d know I have always written older characters. I have tremendously enjoyed writing protagonists in their twenties and thirties. My characters in The Mousai Series, however, originally spanned seventeen to twenty-one, which mixes YA with adult. So it was suggested I age them down to span sixteen to nineteen, fitting them into that young adult category. But after six months of submitting to young adult publishing houses and receiving similar feedback on how my book felt older, my agent and I quickly realized this series was not YA fantasy, but “regular” fantasy. And I’m using the word “regular” to clarify the difference from YA. There’s nothing regular about any kind of fantasy :) .

While I mentioned I was relieved, there was also a BIG part of me that was frustrated. Really frustrated. This felt like time wasted, especially when I was so used to a quicker pace of everything. I would lie awake in bed wondering, “will I ever publish a book again?” “will my readers still be around when I do?”. I eventually crawled out of my bed, however, put my big girl pants on, smothered my fears, and sat down with my agent to discuss our plan; turning my book from YA fantasy to fantasy. Now, for anyone who doesn’t know what this might entail, it’s actually quite simple. The big difference lies in age. Young Adult main characters usually range from 16-18 years old, while “regular” or “adult” fantasy is anywhere from 18-1,000+. Then there’s the use of curse words; YA usually has very little to none (this is debatable though). And romance in “regular” fantasy often has a slower burn. And that’s pretty much it! So, all in all, there wasn’t too much to change. *wipes brow*

But then something happened that I shall refer to as the Big Boom. And this was that after being away from book one for so long, off writing book two, an avalanche of new ideas tumbled through me when I revisited it. There were changes I wanted to do with the main character, new ways I wanted to treat the magic, the villain, the relationship with the love interest, the darkness of the world. With hindsight, which is truly a beautiful thing, I realized I was given a gift. The gift of time. Time to see things differently, fresh, new. Time to really expand all elements of my world, to “mature it”. This is when the sparks really started to fly. The Big Boom. While I was already in love with my book, once I was free to write in a genre of age I was more comfortable in, I became obsessed. Six months later and here we are, with book one bigger in every sense of the word, ready to start submissions again to “regular” fantasy houses. And. I. Am. So. Happy. Nervous. Excited. Proud.

I’m sharing all these details with you to not only shed light on the long dance often happening in traditional publishing, but also to reiterate what I know we all have been told before, but in our “hurry up and get their minds” we often brush aside, and that is; We are always on the path. It sounds strange, but I am so grateful toward those YA editors who passed on my book. If they didn’t, I know I would not have gotten my characters and series to the place it’s in now. I’d be writing YA, when these books were meant for a different space, I was meant to write in a different space. I also now truly understand the importance of taking one’s time. Let yourself sit with your book, be away from your book. I can guarantee you’ll see things you never would have seen if you kept it close. So whether this book gets picked up by a trad-pub house or I self-publish, I know with all my heart I have created something very close to my masterpiece.