Hello all!

I’ve just volunteered to do an online workshop for the Hearts through History chapter on unusual historicals that I’m thinking of titling “Keeping Historicals Weird” — Don’t sue me Texas!

I wanted to sort of give a survey of the current market for them (highly colored by this author’s experience)  and wanted to get other authors’ experiences with publishing and selling unusual historicals — which typically mean historicals with characters or settings outside of Great Britain or America. It can be expanded to mean historicals in time periods not usually seen such as the 1920s even if it is set in G.B or America.

I’d also like to mention the historical paranormal or historical steampunk market as well, so that information is also welcome. My thesis being that the same “hard sell” stigma doesn’t necessarily apply to those markets and you may have higher demand there.

My focus is historical romance, of course, but straight historical fiction with romantic elements is also welcome. I will mention upmarket historical fiction for discussion as that is sometimes a consideration if you have an unusual historical manuscript.

My main focuses are:

1. Which publishers are buying it/pushing it

2. How are sales

3. What is the readership like

4. How did you promote/build readership

I’m especially interested in small press, epublishing, and self-publishing efforts. You can chime in here or e-mail me through the contact form.

Thanks much!