I wonder where you get the idea that we're "restrained to just English medieval novels." If you take a look at the Historical Novels Society, you'll see that novels in every time period and setting, including the ones on your list, are being published all the time. I know that publishers are looking for more unusual settings lately, too. There IS a market for this, though HF in general is a hard sell.
But yes, as others here have said, focus on the story first.
Where would you find novels like this though? Most novels of the time period is rare. I don't see much to do with Sumeria, nor Ancient India for that matter on Amazon.
And India books - they're mostly just on modern setting showing the filth, corruption, and stinking roads.
That's not India, will never be. At one point Ancient India occupied half of the world's GDP. More interesting stuff to write about. For example, Chola Empire ruled all over Indonesia or so.
That has never been heard, nor thought off. It's not even in the Indian education system, a bypass of British colonial education.
Here's a question I asked on quora, and this image shows you what Ancient India looks like, not the modern conception of it now,.
Ancient temples built by the Chola Empire that is still suriving to this decade. Most Ancient Greek/Roman temples are in complete ruins.
http://www.india.com/travel/articles/the-great-living-chola-temples/
Ok I'm going off topic.
This would be great to write about.
I don't think there's a market for Ancient India, and I mean before, not the Mughals, but the Indic Kingdoms, the Cholas, the Mauryan Empire. Indian authors, such as Amish Tripathi, who write in English have covered the Shiva Triology if anyone's ever read it. I'd like to see more of that stuff in the English market.
Probably my area of complaint is that there is a huge lack of diversity within the HF market.
I mean you write a novel on Ancient India, ok, boom. Go to a Publisher - ''Oh no there's no market for it,''.
Not great. How do you explain that? They're really limiting genres here, you literally have to compromise and that's frustrating to the core because they're not sure of how it will launch.
Aruna - totally support you on this. You should stick with the Gunya books. No need of writing Indian unless it's of interest to you.
I've seen no novels on Babylon, nil. Nothing on Assyria, except history books.
https://www.quora.com/Where-can-I-find-reconstruction-pictures-of-Ancient-Indian-cities
Has anyone ever written a novel of where 120,000 Assyrians under the rule of Queen Schenarib go to India and not a single one returns?
Has anyone ever written novels that are now being published of Persia, the great ancient empire that is often ignored for the Greeks? And how the Greeks just defeated them?
If anyone's interested:
http://historum.com/asian-history/53159-architecture-ancient-india.html
I mostly see English medieval, English Napoleonic, English WW2 etc. But look that's just my opinion, you all may even enjoy it. So I'm not saying that you should see it if I'm hating no. I loved C.J Sansom's Heartbroken series.
And if there are books, they've been published long back. You don't see, 2016, new novel set in China do you?
After all, wouldn't reading a novel on China, especially Tang China be more interesting? Plenty of periods have not been covered.
Remember this is just my opinion, that's it, I suspect I am venting out my own frustration on this, but I think I need to.