Thanks to all who sent in their fantasy novel submissions during the recent brief window of opportunity. We opened for a exactly a week and received just under fifty fantasy submissions. Of those fifty I have called for maybe eight samples (which I’m now working through) and so far have only requested one full manuscript. Tough odds, huh?

Interestingly, I was surprised at how few of the submissions we received fell into the area I’m looking for – **and specifically requested**. Not a single submission hit the nail exactly in the head (as outlined in my previous post) – which is worrying. There was also a disproportionately high number (I’d say about 80%!) of stories that centered on angels, or some sort of fight between angels and demons, or a conflict between heaven and hell. This a kickback from the urban fantasy trend which shows no sign of abating – but my feeling is that the market is already saturated with this stuff as it is – and publishers are currently buying up books for publication in 2011 and 2012 when it will be even more saturated. I may be wrong, but at some point the bottom will drop out of the market for this type of fiction and – from what I’ve seen this last week – they’ll be nothing to fill the gap!

Gimme something else, folks! But only when we re-open, please.