A.J. Lancaster, author of the enthralling cosy fantasy How to Find a Nameless Fae, on her experience of both indie and traditional publishing.
When the email hit my inbox, it seemed too good to be true. It was from an editor at Tor UK. She’d enjoyed reading the self-published edition of How to Find a Nameless Fae, and was I interested in traditional publishing?
I didn’t grow up wanting to be a writer. It seemed approximately as possible as turning into a dragon, since I’d never met one of those either. I assumed authors must be chosen via some complex and magical process, which had no possibility of happening to me, a farm-child in rural New Zealand.
Nonetheless, I have always been a writer. Throughout my years of studying for a sensible degree and later attempting to build a sensible career, I wrote fantasy novels. I accumulated manuscripts of varying levels of quality and kept them in lovingly hand-decorated ring binders stored in the back of my wardrobe. For an embarrassingly long time, it did not occur to me to do anything else with them.
Indie People
Enter self publishing. Through the twists of fate and also the internet, I met indie authors, people building writing careers that did not rely on a mysterious and daunting process on the other side of the world. Why not me, I thought? I threw myself into research with the enthusiasm of a baleen whale determined to hoover up every krill of possible information on the subject.
Correctly positioning my beloved bookchildren in the market was my first task. I write whimsical, light-hearted fantasy with intimate rather than epic stakes, and I didn’t want any readers to be disappointed when they got banter rather than battlefields. It was fantastically helpful of Legends and Lattes to come along and popularise the term ‘cosy fantasy’! Having a shared language of subgenre labels makes it much easier to communicate with your audience.
It’s also fantastically helpful when the market moves in your favour. I’ve been thrilled to see titles like The Spellshop and Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries rising up the charts. I could consider myself a commercial genius for publishing On Trend, but in fact it’s a happy accident that the fantasy I enjoy writing—humorous, optimistic, and containing generous dollops of romance—has only grown in popularity over the last few years.
When a Stranger Loves Your Book
It feels amazing when a stranger reads and loves your book. I’ve been thrilled and humbled by the response to my stories about sentient houses and melodramatic fae men. Word-of-mouth marketing is incredibly powerful, and I know that my readers are ultimately responsible for whatever algorithm brought my sixth book—a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin with a 40-year-old heroine—into my editor’s path.
Which brings me back to the editor’s email, the arrival of a surprise mystical dragon in my inbox.
(I know a lot of writers worry now about missing real inquiries amongst all the ai spam, and I can only say that once you’ve received ten ai-spam emails, you recognise the voice of the eldritch horror attempting to impersonate a human. No genuine inquirer will communicate by reconfiguring phrases from your blurb and reviews into over-the-top, subtly incorrect flattery.)
Indie and Trad: Different Paths
Self-publishing sometimes gets looked down on as a ‘lesser’ form of publishing, but I firmly disagree. Indie and trad are just different paths to the same ultimate goal of getting books into the hands of readers. For me, partnering with a traditional publisher meant I would be able to reach a much wider audience, and Tor is responsible for publishing some of my own favourites.
Self-publishing means you wear all the hats. CEO AJ Lancaster wants to know why Head of Creativity AJ Lancaster’s department isn’t meeting their deadlines. Head of Marketing AJ Lancaster pipes up with a request for more social media content. Head of Finance AJ Lancaster asks when we’re going to update the spreadsheets for this quarter. Everyone wants more staff time, except there is only one staff, and they are all me.
Now I have a whole team behind me, which honestly feels amazing. There’s a marketing plan! Someone has come up with a whole set of cool taglines! (My favourite so far is for The Prince of Secrets: “A fae prince is hiding himself and his feelings on a magical estate with a grudge”. It’s perfect, and I’m mad I didn’t think of it first!)
Timelines
Trad timelines are much longer than indie ones, but it’s still felt like a bit of a whirlwind so far. Tor is re-publishing not only my fairytale standalone How to Find a Nameless Fae but also my Stariel series, about a magical estate that chooses its own ruler. This has meant lots to discuss, between planning the re-launches and the logistics of transitioning from the old indie editions to the new ones.
Covers have been one such discussion point. I’m pragmatic and know how these can change depending on the market, so I’m tickled pink that Tor was keen to keep my original indie cover designs as a base. They’ve all now been given a glow-up, still recognisable but with a new twist. I secretly love the new How to Find a Nameless Fae cover even more than its earlier self!
It’s been a big learning curve, but so far I am enjoying the journey. I feel like I’m back to being that baleen whale again, exploring whole new oceans. I’m excited to see Tor’s editions on bookshelves very soon!
(c) A.J. Lancaster
About How To Find A Nameless Fae by A.J. Lancaster:
A spectacularly cosy fantasy which reimagines the Rumpelstiltskin story – where the havoc of an unpaid debt leads to an unlikely romance.
Princess Gisele has spent her life waiting for an evil fae sorcerer to claim her. It was the price of her mother’s crown – her first-born child for the ability to spin straw into gold. But it’s been decades, and he still hasn’t shown up. Now, the magic has curdled into a curse.
So Gisele marches into the fae realm to hunt down her ‘Malediction’. Yet instead of a monster, she finds a scholarly, cat-eared sorcerer and his meddling, sentient house. And he wants nothing to do with the angry, knife-wielding princess on his doorstep. Unfortunately, the magic that binds them won’t let them go that easily. And in a house that rearranges itself to keep them together, Gisele discovers that the man who ruined her life might just steal her heart.
She came to end him, but she might stay to save him.
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