Is Urban Fantasy Dead to Sell Now?

How many places have you subbed to? How many agents? How many publishers?

I ask because I have heard tales on here of people subbing many many hundreds of times before getting a bite and that on stuff that is popular at the time of submission. You can have everything perfect and still not find an agent who is willing to take you on. And sometimes you happen to find the one agent who thinks the same way you do and then it all happens.

Keep subbing the first novel (take on board any criticisms or ideas you get given in this process), continue writing the second and maybe think about a third that is not UF or related to the first book and start writing that. Eventually, one of them will hit a publisher in the face and stick...

Sue Lahna said:

I've been querying a really smart adult urban fantasy called Sanguinaria all summer and I have not gotten a single bite. I've been rejected by every good agency I was striving for, and I feel like I'm just getting nowhere.

I know my writing is sound, I've gotten nothing but great comments from professors at school who are published themselves and am published in my universities lit. journal, so I just don't know what I'm doing wrong. My query letter is all nice and quaint just like the one in the Writer's Market. And yet I get rejections everywhere I turn.

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"Being published" is not enough. If your writing program is like most I've seen, your professors' bibliographies aren't long on commercial sales. Most of their stuff has been published by magazines and publishers run by people much like themselves. I know of one degree-granting university-level writing program where the department chair has never made a single commercial sale, and many of the instructors' lists of publishing credits lean heavily on appearances in magazines published by the department. They charge their students full tuition.

Perhaps your own program is better than that. I sincerely hope so. The point is, unless your instructors have successful commercial careers themselves, their opinions about the commercial potential of your writing aren't reliable. They can't teach you what they don't know. Technically, they're a vanity operation -- their salaries are paid because their students pay tuition. Vanity operations are never big on giving accurate feedback to potential clients. It interferes with the business model.

As for your university's literary journal, do you know anyone who buys and reads those things who doesn't attend the school and isn't acquainted with any of the contributors? When was the last time you saw one on the shelves at a Barnes & Noble? If you go to Abebooks.com and search on "college literary journal", most of the results are priced at one dollar. That covers the handling costs.

I'm not saying you have no hope. I'm saying you need more relevant advice.

So I guess my question is this: has Urban Fantasy been beaten into the ground? Should I stop trying?

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Urban Fantasy is booming.

I have a wonderful YA gritty-disturbing paranormal romance at work in the background, which would be an easier sell,

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Are you sure? Upper YA is a tough market.

but it exists in the same world as this. I'm not sure if I could write it without charries from the adult series coming and going.

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What are charries?

If you mean crossover characters, you're getting way ahead of yourself. First, sell your books. After that, you can worry about your characters' metafictional habits.

What arteus and HapiSofi said, plus a couple more things:

1) How is your query letter? Maybe it sucks, and that's why you're not getting any bites. Have you tried posting it to Query Letter Hell?

2) Are your first five pages as good as they can be?

3) Is that an up-to-date word count in your sig? I'm confused if you mean you completed 50K words when you were shooting for 70K, but either way, those numbers seem very short for an adult urban fantasy. That could be the problem right there (especially if it's 50K words -- that's on the short side even for YA, much less adult).

Solid writing isn't good enough. It has to be excellent or unique or a stand-out in voice, or a combination of all those things. Sound writers get rejected all the time. (And sadly, academic writing, while often sound, isn't the same as commercial writing.)

The paranormal (especially romance) market is as saturated as the UF one, if not moreso, so I'm not sure why you expect it to be an easier sell. You also have to understand that settling both an adult series and a YA one in the same universe has a bit of a built in problem. If you sell the UF, the house/imprint will likely have a clause in your contract that says they're the only ones that can sell books you write in that universe (to keep others from cutting into their profits if you decide to write more in the YA series than the adult one or something). This means that basically you could only hope to sell the spin-off to one publisher.

Your title made me laugh. The vampire novel I wrote two years ago was called Sanguinara.

Urban fantasy is still selling but it's harder in some ways because so many people are doing it. You have to really stand out. It's no longer enough to just be a competent urban fantasy. You have to have something special.

And there's the clincher. Not only do you have to have something special, but you have to be able to quantify that in your query. I can't tell you the number of writers I have critted who managed to take an absolutely amazing story and slaughter it in the query.

So I would get some feedback on your query if you can, and also your first three chapters. Alongside the query issue, if your story starts out slow, that might also be a problem.

Is there a reason that you can't work on the YA alongside the adult novel? If you're already shopping the adult novel, why can't you work on the YA too? As far as crossover potential, I'm pretty sure I have seen authors have series where characters crossover from both YA and adult books. It's not really a big deal, I don't think.

I have to be the one to ask, what exactly do you mean by Urban Fantasy??

Urban fantasy is selling well, but something to consider is that most of those books on the shelves now would have been signed maybe 2 years ago, or longer.

With so many UF writers and books now to choose from, flooding the market, you need to have a really great book to stand out and catch and editor or agents eye.

Sue Lahna said:

I've been querying a really smart adult urban fantasy called Sanguinaria all summer and I have not gotten a single bite. I've been rejected by every good agency I was striving for, and I feel like I'm just getting nowhere.

I know my writing is sound, I've gotten nothing but great comments from professors at school who are published themselves and am published in my universities lit. journal, so I just don't know what I'm doing wrong. My query letter is all nice and quaint just like the one in the Writer's Market. And yet I get rejections everywhere I turn.

So I guess my question is this: has Urban Fantasy been beaten into the ground? Should I stop trying?

I have a wonderful YA gritty-disturbing paranormal romance at work in the background, which would be an easier sell, but it exists in the same world as this. I'm not sure if I could write it without charries from the adult series coming and going.

Thoughts? Ideas?

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Hi Sue,

Take this with a grain of salt, an advance apology, and my word that I'm only giving you the advice I would want to hear, so you can, and should, either take it or leave it:

Reading your post here makes me think you suffer a gross over-abundance of confidence. Confidence is good; without any of it you wouldn't even sit at the keyboard, but I went through and highlighted everything that came across as self-congratulatory above in read (and it was a shitload of red) and then from your lack of success you concluded the genre that packs shelf after shelf right now must be dead, a somewhat self-serving and erroneous conclusion.

Now take a breath or six, and remember I'm not here to piss in your cereal, but to help you. And your query and writing could very well rock--post some up here. Post your query up here. Let us see. But I get nervous of anyone that confident, wondering if their work is really as good as they think it is, and if not, if they are even OPEN to improving it. Your tone alone might have permeated the query letter, sending agents scurrying, or maybe the query was bad (a bad query will doom a good book, because you won't get them to the sample pages even), or maybe the thing just still needs some work. It happens, even if some of your short stuff got published. It also happens that if you have something so delightfully weird and incomprehensible that The Oregonian Journal of Literary Pretense simply must publish it, that may not mean you are writing solid stories for a mainstream audience in a mainstream genre.....get too pretty, and those who want a story instead of lots of purple prose will run from it, which is why most litfic ends up coming from smaller presses and smaller print runs.

Thus far, the fact you haven't gotten any partial requests (if I read the above correctly) suggests either the query, the samples, or both are deeply flawed. No big deal, see what folks here have to say and go from there. I would say right off the bat, "quaint" makes me cringe and think trhere are little jokes to "personalize" it, or tricks or gimmicks, instead of a straight-forward, sleek pitch. But the genre isn't even close to dead, so if you aren't getting bites that isn't where the issue is--folks are still selling v ampire fiction after the Twilight craze, for crying out loud.

Post up in SYW, and see what others have to say.

Good luck,
Quick

Sue Lahna said:

I know my writing is sound, I've gotten nothing but great comments from professors at school who are published themselves and am published in my universities lit. journal, so I just don't know what I'm doing wrong. My query letter is all nice and quaint just like the one in the Writer's Market. And yet I get rejections everywhere I turn.

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Well, I just came out of the university system in June, and within weeks I thought 'sod this, I'm going to write what I want to write.' I am now beginning work on a second Roman thriller.

I would be interested to know what your ratio for rejection and full/partial requests are. The fault may lie in the query itself, 'quaint' won't hack it, it needs to grab the reader by the throat.

We all get rejections, its part of being a writer.

I also highly recommend a book called Write to be Published by Nicola Morgan and The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman.

Also seek out expert critiques away from the academic world.

Moved thread to Urban Fantasy discussion forum, which is probably a better fit. Other threads here may contain useful info or even answer your questions.

Oddly enough we don't have an Urban Fantasy sub-forum in Share Your Work, closest match (if you were wanting to post samples of your novel for critique) would probably be Science Fiction/Fantasy SYW (if prompted to enter a password, it's vista). Oh, or Young Adult SYW if it's YA, obviously. And Query Letter Hell SYW for feedback on your query letter.

-Derek

gothicangel said:

Also seek out expert critiques away from the academic world.

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I think that may be incredibly important.

I've seen many long-established authors talk about breaking in with short stories instead of novels, which is a valid approach, but I think many of them are unaware how competetive the shorts markets have become, or that it is probably easier to get a novel deal than a short stuffed at many of the high-end short markets.

I've also seen them suggest subbing to editors first, then getting your agent once you have a sale....which is now very difficult, but was a valid option twenty years ago....


it isn't unique to writing, I remember my undergrad profs telling us one reason to get a PhD was job security and a fat salary; most of them were completely unaware of the massive glut of PhDs even at that time busting ass in post-doctoral appointments for well under $20K per year.


academia is a great place to learn many things, but often trails current markets

Academia =/= the real world.

Even if some members have ventured outside of their hallowed halls from time to time.

Find a beta who isn't a writer, and post your quaint little qurey in QLH.

My first thought is that the style of writing encouraged by many university programs is very literary. Which isn't to say you couldn't have a literary urban fantasy, I suppose, but a lot of times genre writing is considered the bastard stepson in programs at various schools.

Did you write fantasy stories for your classwork? How was it received? Did any of the people who taught you specialize in genre fiction?

I second putting your work up in SYW (or you can toss me a PM and I'll give you a crit). Chances are the query is the biggest problem. If the query is doing it's job, you'll get requests no matter what the quality of the manuscript. The good news is if you completely revise the query and wait a little while, you can probably get away with requerying some of the agents who have turned you down.

Also, have you included a writing sample? The first book I queried I only sent exactly what was required. The second I always included five pages, even if it said "query only." That one got me a lot more requests, and I'm fairly certain that it was because my opening pages could carry it. I knew they were strong, and having strong pages can make turn a "maybe" into a "yes."

I'd suggest putting up your first few pages and query and seeing the comments you get. There might be something missing that will increase your success rate dramatically.

It's a mistake to assume the reason for the rejections is the market and not your query or your story. A really big and common mistake. I'm in agreement with quicklime on those lines.

I don't know what the query letter you're modeling after looks like, but nice and quaint doesn't really sound that promising. Google Query Shark and study what's there, then maybe give a different query a try.

Shelley

Ditto on the getting someone familiar with the genre to look at things. I generally have two beta readers - one is an established author of romance novels in a very specific niche market who has a good handle on things like writing style but is not in anyway familiar with the genre stuff (I think what she knows about it, I have taught her...). My other beta reader is someone I have known for many years and is not only a writer (and therefore can also comment on technical stuff) but is also someone who is involved in reading genre fiction (sci fi, fantasy and horror) which also happen to be what he writes. They both get everything I write and I take on board all their comments but tend to weigh them based on known experiences (for example, if my romance beta reader tells me that my sci fi concept is a unique one I tend to think 'ok, but I don't think she has the breadth of reading to truly know that' whereas if my genre expert says this then I consider it more plausible).

Urban fantasy, fantasy and horror are strange beasts which have their own rules in terms of what is acceptable and what is considered unique or novel.

Sue Lahna said:

Thoughts? Ideas?

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Echoing what everyone has said so far.

Put the query up in the QLH.

Put a sample up in SYW.

I have to wonder if all the great feedback you've gotten from professors are from UF readers as well. There may be a huge divide in reception.

Hello,Sue.

Like everyone else said,the UF market is saturated. It will take a really compelling premise for one to stand out. But without a query letter that practically sings once it's opened,the agent will never know.

I had a hideous query that I sent out ten times and received ten instant rejections. Here I was,secure in my esteemed arrogance and believing it was so perfect. Ha! A merciless writer friend took a laser to it and showed just how horrid the poor thing was. I stopped querying and focused on a new letter for three months. That letter has gotten me two partial requests and one very nice and detailed rejection letter that helped me immensely.

My point is that if you aren't getting anything,it's the query or samples that is the problem. There are many wonderful and kind folks here who can help. I second everybody else and say try SYW and Query Hell. Don't give up on your book,either.

As others have said, post your query in Query Hell. Get a beta from here who enjoys Urban Fantasy for another opinion.

areteus said:

I ask because I have heard tales on here of people subbing many many hundreds of times before getting a bite ...

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There just aren't that many agents/publishers interested in sci-fi/fantasy. People who talk hundreds are generally subbing more mainstream.

I'm new and all, but this is a good question. Go to your local Barnes and Nobles and look at the fantasy/science fiction section. I see so many urban fantasy novels it does make me wonder if there's any room? There is. With the supernatural so hot right now, this is a period to try and get published. Five or ten years from now it maybe low key or dead in the water but often it's the opposite.

Fantasy's done pretty well since the days of Tolkien. There's always an audience for it like any other sub genre. Now are you going to get 500,000 readers with you neato manuscript? Ehh probally not. It's about being realistic as well. Compromise between ideal and reality and you can't go wrong.

And having a sense of self-deprecation and "it's good but could be utter shit" doesn't hurt either. You want take pride in what you write but you also want to get advice and necessary critique.

At least in my book.

It's good to remember that the books on the shelf now, even the ones in the "just released" section, were purchased anywhere from a year to three years ago, and written a year before that. Not that it's ever been easy to sell anything, just that it's hard to define the editor's market's "now" by what's on the shelves now. For that, you'd do better to look at the deals being made.

I have heard rumblings (wish I could remember exactly where) that the market is so saturated with certain types of UF (especially vamps and werewolves), that it takes a LOT to get an agent's or editor's attention in all the noise.

I have some small anecdotal evidence that it's true, in that I've been querying (at least thirty submissions in the last year) an UF that happens to have a vampire in it, with very little agent interest, compared to interest I've had in other projects in the past. Sure, it could be that the query sucks or the story sucks, but I have a wee bit of expertise with queries, so I believe (perhaps wrongly) the complete lack of interest suggests that the market is saturated, and I failed to show the agents something more than "yet another vampire story." So, market issues PLUS my own weaknesses.

Dittoing the others. Please get the samples up there in SYW; I'll be happy to take a look.