On Joining the Great Unwashed

It is with great pleasure that I announce Eternal Knight will be officially released on May 1st of this year.

Who is the publisher?

moi

Yes, you read that right. I am self-publishing my novel.

It was not an easy decision, but I ultimately decided that it was the right one for me. My original goal was to follow the traditional route. I would gain an agent, the agent would find a publisher, and all would be right with the universe. Things fell apart in stage one. I couldn't land an agent.

Why didn't I land an agent? It is impossible to know for sure. The majority of the agents I queried only wanted a query letter and five to ten pages of the manuscript. I think I had a good query letter, nothing spectacular, but no serious flaws.

Was it the pages I sent? I think this might be the case. The opening of Eternal Knight is a dramatic action sequence. Unfortunately there is nothing that screams this book is different! The dramatic twists and turns that set Eternal Knight apart from other fantasy novels don't occur for several chapters. The first chapters set you up for the twists that are to come. The agents, unlike a reader, never got that far.

Eternal Knight is also an epic fantasy. No elves, goblins, or dragons, but it is still epic fantasy. My query was competing with approximately a gazillion other epic fantasies. My agent queries failed to set it apart from my competitors.

Why do I think it will succeed as a self-published novel? I have great faith in Eternal Knight. I know that I have created an exciting, entertaining story. I am certain that many readers will gain great enjoyment from it.

Of course every delusional self-published author thinks the same. And their books are terrible and don't sell.* What gives me the right to claim that I am not one of the great unwashed?

Audacity, more audacity, always audacity. 

When it comes right down to it, I just couldn't bear the idea of Eternal Knight sitting on a shelf in my office until.... what? Until I die? I've poured too much of myself into the book to let it die with me. What do I have to lose by putting it out there for the world to see? I am proud of what I've created, and it will give me great pleasure to share it with others, as few--or as many--as that turns out to be.

I am incredibly excited by the entire process of preparing Eternal Knight for publication. In fact, I am more excited about writing than I've been in a very long time.

I have a lot more that I'll be sharing with you over the next month and a half. And a few surprises as well.

Off I go, more work to do.

*clearly they aren't ALL terrible and don't sell. Just most of them. Some are quite good. Some are best sellers.