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.

From our Submissions Guidlines page…

As of June 10th, we are currently ONLY looking at novels that fit comfortably into the fantasy genre. By this we mean traditional, high, heroic, dark, historical, or urban. Do some research if you don’t know what these subdivisions are.

Carefully note that we’re not looking for anything that attempts to redefine the genre or reinvent the wheel. Nor do we want derivative rehashes of your favourite Sword and Sorcery stories. Be aware that the tale of the great quest to recover the ancient, lost ring of hochty-mochty and thus bring harmony to the warring dwarf kingdoms is extremely unlikely to excite.

In short we want intelligent and commercial fantasy fiction. Need examples? Look at some of the recent market leaders, both in critical and commercial terms… THE FIRST LAW TRILOGY by Joe Abercrombie, Brent Week’s NIGHT ANGEL TRILOGY, Patrick Rothfuss’s THE NAME OF THE WIND, Brandon Sanderson’s MISTBORN sequence, Peter Brett’s THE PAINTED MAN, Steven Erikson’s THE MALAZAN BOOKS OF THE FALLEN  – all of these are excellent examples of what I want to see … and if you’ve not heard of any of these, don’t bother contacting us! Note no mention here of classics like Tolkien, Brooks, Donaldson or even GRRM. We are looking for submissions from folks familiar with the current, cutting edge of market. So, if yours is the next name on this stellar list of fantasy talent, drop us a line.