I was going to put “Asian fantasy” in the title, but then I had visions of people coming here searching for a XXX site—ugh.
I got a note from a reader who told me they’ve been searching for this sort of book forever and there’s not much out there. She had been going through search engines looking for Asian fantasy stories. It’s not the first letter I’ve gotten like that either. Each one makes me hopeful. For an unpublished writer to start getting fan mail, and not from friends who love me, that must mean something right? 🙂
It was a big boost when I found an agent who was excited to go to bat for me. We’re still on that search for the editor who believes that these stories will sell. Funny how much of an uphill battle it is to get into English language genre fiction when there’s a flood of movies, manga, anime and centuries of Asian language literature on the same themes.
Once in a while when I’m feeling blue and lonely, I do go googling for Asian fantasy fiction or wuxia. But that’s okay. I knew this was going to be hard when I started. I just have to keep improving the writing.
So if you’re out there. If you’re searching too and you’ve found me. Say hello. *waves*
I truly believe there is a market and I love these stories. I’m very stubborn and somewhat patient and there’s enough stories in this genre to last another couple centuries.
I have been looking out for the release of “Silver Phoenix” for months! I came across the gorgeous cover and Cindy Pon’s name once when browsing Absolute Write for information about agents. I checked out her website and blog immediately and was thrilled to my toes to see that this novel was going to be released in May 2009. (Correction! The release date is actually April 28, 2009. Thanks Cindy!)