On the writing market
I was poking around the other day while sitting at the Ref desk. I tend to surf the web looking for blogs of my favorite authors. Sometimes I look up Amazon reviews just to see the bad ones. What can I say, I take my amusement where I can.
Anyway, one author who's writings I loved, but haven't read in a while is Barbara Hambly. I kind of parted ways with Ms. Hambly's writing after the disaster that was Knight of the Demon Queen. (note: This was only a disaster for me personally, because the idea of being possessed by demons is one of my own personal squicks.) When I was at Barnes and Noble the other day, I checked the shelves for her name and found only a single book there. She's a very prolific writer and this surprised me.
The reason, apparently, is that she's writing Historical Fiction more than Fantasy these days. And imagine my surprise to find that, according to her sorta blog Fantasy publishers aren't buying the typical Epic Fantasy novel. They're looking for the contemporary fantasy thing.
(Takes a moment to curse the name of Laurell K. Hamilton and her slutty vampire hunter.)
I was poking around Amazon and found that Melanie Rawn, a writer who typically writes Epic Fantasy and whose series I loved as a teen, has a contemporary fantasy novel coming out. This woman hasn't published a novel in EIGHT YEARS and still has the 3rd novel of a trilogy hanging over all our heads. The 3rd novel isn't even written, btw, and last I heard, she had asked her fans on her message board what happened in the first two books because she didn't remember!!!!!
The novels in this genre tend to have spunky women as the lead (also considering the Women of the Underworld series here, and LA Bank's vampire hunter novels) and the authors of them are all women. I wonder if this frozen fantasy market problem applies to men too. I mean, I don't see Terry Goodkind (vomits) having a problem getting his crap published (but oh wait, that's not fantasy, that's commentary on society).
It's an interesting question. I know the market tends to change, and the publishing industry has its own pitfalls. Who can say what the next big thing will be?
Though I think I'll stick to writing smut. It keeps me occupied;)
Anyway, one author who's writings I loved, but haven't read in a while is Barbara Hambly. I kind of parted ways with Ms. Hambly's writing after the disaster that was Knight of the Demon Queen. (note: This was only a disaster for me personally, because the idea of being possessed by demons is one of my own personal squicks.) When I was at Barnes and Noble the other day, I checked the shelves for her name and found only a single book there. She's a very prolific writer and this surprised me.
The reason, apparently, is that she's writing Historical Fiction more than Fantasy these days. And imagine my surprise to find that, according to her sorta blog Fantasy publishers aren't buying the typical Epic Fantasy novel. They're looking for the contemporary fantasy thing.
(Takes a moment to curse the name of Laurell K. Hamilton and her slutty vampire hunter.)
I was poking around Amazon and found that Melanie Rawn, a writer who typically writes Epic Fantasy and whose series I loved as a teen, has a contemporary fantasy novel coming out. This woman hasn't published a novel in EIGHT YEARS and still has the 3rd novel of a trilogy hanging over all our heads. The 3rd novel isn't even written, btw, and last I heard, she had asked her fans on her message board what happened in the first two books because she didn't remember!!!!!
The novels in this genre tend to have spunky women as the lead (also considering the Women of the Underworld series here, and LA Bank's vampire hunter novels) and the authors of them are all women. I wonder if this frozen fantasy market problem applies to men too. I mean, I don't see Terry Goodkind (vomits) having a problem getting his crap published (but oh wait, that's not fantasy, that's commentary on society).
It's an interesting question. I know the market tends to change, and the publishing industry has its own pitfalls. Who can say what the next big thing will be?
Though I think I'll stick to writing smut. It keeps me occupied;)