So I got an answer back from the small-press publisher where I’d submitted The Gryphon Clerks.

They called it well-written, with many merits, a fresh and engaging premise and a unique and engaging setting, but they felt the story and the characters were buried under too much setting explanation. Which is probably a fair call, and not too distant from the feedback I had from my betas.

I’d already decided that the book I’ve nearly finished would now be the “first” book (it takes place at the same time as The Gryphon Clerks, but in different locations with mostly different characters). I feel it’s a much stronger book, with a clearer plot. Most of it was written after I started outlining, for one thing.

It’s shorter, too. (I’m going to have to push to reach 60,000 words, which is considered the lower end of novel length by a lot of people, whereas TGC is a little over 80K.) Originally, it was all part of the same book, but I realized I was trying to tell two stories at once and separated them, like a surgeon separating conjoined twins.

If I end up self-publishing, which is on the table, I’d like to try what Lindsay Buroker has been doing and eventually make the first book in the series a free sample, so I needed a stronger book than The Gryphon Clerks is (as it stands), and preferably a short one, to be that first book.

Why is self-publishing on the table? Well, not because I’ve had one rejection from one publisher. Truth is, I’ve been rethinking the advantages of small-press publication since the Ridan Publishing fiasco burst. Short version, if you haven’t been following: seems this small, husband-and-wife-owned press stopped communicating with its authors, and then stopped paying them, and then stopped shipping books that people had bought from them. Or so it is alleged. Before this, they were considered one of the better small presses, too, so I’m understandably more hesitant now about going with a small press. There was a strong dose of relief mixed in with the disappointment at being turned down.

I do have a couple of other small-press publishers I could try, but I’m going to hold off for now. Here’s the current plan:

1. Finish drafting Realmgold (the new “first” book). I’ve only got a couple more chapters in my outline, and I have some time off from work, so all going well this should happen by the end of the week or thereabouts.
2. Go over it with a bit of coarse sandpaper and then ship it out to some beta readers (you can volunteer in the comments or on Google+).
3. While awaiting feedback, either work on an outline for the next book, currently called Agents of Victory, or go back over TGC and see if I can dig the story out from under the setting after all.
4. Revise in line with feedback.
5. Decide what I do next: self-publish (which would involve hiring a development editor and a cover artist, something I have the money to do) or submit to another small press.

Mike Reeves-McMillan

 | Website

Mike Reeves-McMillan lives in Auckland, New Zealand, the setting of his Auckland Allies contemporary urban fantasy series; and also in his head, where the weather is more reliable, and there are a lot more wizards. He also writes the Gryphon Clerks series (steampunk/magepunk), the Hand of the Trickster series (sword-and-sorcery heist capers), and short stories which have appeared in venues such as Compelling Science Fiction and Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores.