Fangs for nothing

To preface my question: I'm not writing just to get published. I've been writing for a long time now and while that was my ultimate dream, it was never the goal of what I do.

I am a university student studying Creative Writing, and that workload means I'm not working solidly on getting only one of my works up to scratch to send to an agent or publisher, but recently I've been entertaining the thought of becoming a published author one day, but the more I research, the more I despair.

I write in the fantasy genre and as if that wasn't enough reason to have doubts about publishing in Australia, I have a vampire fiction that I've been working on since before I ever heard anything about sparkling, romantically-inclined vampire lovers. The vampire fiction business is booming at the moment, but I'm not going to be able to work solidly on it for a few years and I'm slightly sad at the thought that Stephenie Meyer's worldwide phenomenon will make my novel generate so much less interest than it would have even before all of this hype.

The work-in-progress I have isn't anything like the irksome tale of Edward and Bella (one HUGE difference being my complete lack of a love story) and my mythology isn't even the same, so my question to you is about the fate of a vampire novel in, say, five years' time when this is all old news. Willl anyone even bother to look at my manuscript or query letter when the word 'vampire' turns up?

Um ... I don't have a crystal ball, so I can't tell you. Although I understand your frustration - on the one hand I'm completely annoyed that Joss Whedon isn't getting ALL of the credit for bringing vampire storylines to the world; on the other hand I hope that the Twi-hards keep their mitts off Buffy and Angel (the series, not the characters) because those stories are just so, so, so much more fabulous. But Twilight gave us Robert Pattinson (or R-Patts, as he's known in my 'hood), so it's not all bad, non?

I digress. Truthfully, I have no way of knowing if novels will even be around in five years - it could all be fragments of text on iPhones by then - so I can't tell you how anyone's going to respond to your manuscript. If you love the story, write it. If it's good enough, it won't be just a 'vampire novel' and will be considered for its general story merits. Until then, don't waste any energy wondering what's going to happen in the future.

As for the fantasy genre: see the post directly below this one ...