Fairy Tale Markets

[RainbowDragon]

I'd have chimed in on the Children's board, but this probably belongs in its own thread.

Does anyone know of agents/publishers especially welcoming of traditional (non-modernized) novel-length original fairy tales? (Not retellings of familiar tales, but new stories with similar themes).

[RainbowDragon]

Don't all speak out at once!

[Grey Malkin]

Try publishers of fantasy. Maybe you've found a gap in the market.

[Elektra]

I've had problems with this--most of the agents who requested my book said 'no' because they were looking for a modern retelling (even though the query makes it quite clear that it is NOT a modern retelling).

[RainbowDragon]

Elektra, that's about what I expected; most of the books out there now "mix up" or twist familiar tales. Guess that makes us pioneers of a sort. :) Wish it weren't so hard to be a pioneer. . .!

[PattiTheWicked]

I think one of the more popular themes right now is to take all the classic elements of the fairy tale and make it into your won story, and fantasy does this a lot -- especially YA fantasy.

By the way, if you haven't read Neil Gaiman's Stardust, hie thee to the library right now and get it. It's a fantasy, but reads like a really literate fairy tale.

[Christine N.]

My first book was basically my own fairy tale. Although it has a 'modern age' protaganist, she falls into a world that is my own, and uses a lot of fairy tale and fantasy conventions.

Gail Carson Levine has basically made her career out of retelling classic fairy tales in classic settings. If you have work similar to hers, maybe you should find out who represents her and who publishers her stuff.

Bruce Coville does similar work, but he has a wide range of books, from modern to 'fairy tale' like stuff.

[zenwriter]

Could your book be classified as a folktale at all (sorry if this is a stupid question)? There are some publishers that seem to publish folktales for kids:

http://www.augusthouse.com/company_information/submission_guidelines
http://www.aakp.com/website/html/guidelines.html

I know nothing about these two publishers – I just found them online. I thought maybe they would be a place to start.

[Elektra]

I think one of the more popular themes right now is to take all the classic elements of the fairy tale and make it into your won story, and fantasy does this a lot -- especially YA fantasy.

By the way, if you haven't read Neil Gaiman's Stardust, hie thee to the library right now and get it. It's a fantasy, but reads like a really literate fairy tale.

Arg! I hated Stardust--bored me to tears, because you could see everything coming a mile away.

[blackholly]

I've been thinking about this a lot and I wanted to ask for clarification, RainbowDragon. It's hard to imagine a novel-length fairy tale written in the style of traditional fairy tales. For one thing, the protagonists seldom have any interiority, which is one of the things that makes fairy tales so ripe for retelling. For another, most fairy tales are only a few pages long.

Are you talking about something like Catheryenne Valente's THE ORPHAN TALES (not YA) or Martine Leavitt's KETURAH AND LORD DEATH (one of this year's National Book Award Finalists for YA) where fairy tale elements are used to create a new story? If so, I think any publisher that is open to fantasy would be open to a novel like that, but possibly calling it a "fairy tale" is causing some confusion. You could possibly go with "mythic fantasy" as I've sometimes heard it called.