Book trends might be a little bit like stocks: When something seems like it has taken a nosedive, that's the time to get in on it. It is tough right now, but epic fantasy will be back! Also, thank the fates that self-published fantasy is so viable now.

"if you want to read something with spice, read Dune" my dudei just cried laughing at this

I think the constraints on traditional published authors is one of the biggest reasons why indie has grown so much this past decade.

The silver lining is that no new epic fantasy means I have time to catch up on old epic fantasy

The quote from the author about being dropped for being for being profitable, but not profitable enough reminds me of Wizards of the Coast ending the long running, profitable, D&D tie-in novel lines because they werent profitable enough. Shortsighted and stupid, but these are the decisions you get from people who get degrees in how to use Excel.

"If you want to read about spice, read Dune. Go to Arrakis." 😂 I was laughing out loud at this!

Hey Petrik, Thanks so much for making this video. I'm a high school English teacher and my wife is a college professor. We just finished our epic fantasy novel and have been going through the querying process. Our book is over 200k words and we're getting immediately rejected by every agent we query. The agents aren't even reading our sample pages and they certainly aren't requesting a full. The only person who's requested a full from us is Matt Bialer, Pat Rothfuss's agent, who asked for a rewrite and asked us to fix some things before resubmitting to him. We've recently done so, but we haven't heard back from him yet. The agents we've queried have mostly expressed interest in cozy fantasy, romantasy, urban fantasy, etc. etc. It's very disheartening. We've worked on this novel for 4-5 years and we're likely going to have to indie publish. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I just wasn't expecting this to happen.

The pressure to keep the word-count down has always been a big deal in the traditional pub world, so I'm unsurprised that the pressure has risen along with production costs. When my agent was shopping The Severing Son with acquiring agents in NYC (2016-18), we were often advised to take it down to somewhere under 120K (from about 160K range). As an exercise, I did a draft at 120, which required stripping a lot of world-building, the prologue, and ALL of the scenes that pertained to events in books 2 and 3. My wife, in particular, hated that version of the book. It makes me glad that I walked away from trad pub. I'm very glad that you're talking about this. I hope the conversation reaches the conference tables in NYC. Keep up the great work, and thanks for all you do for readers and writers!

This is one of the main reasons why self-publishing is so appealing. Having to limit yourself to 100K words is abysmal. Even 130K feels short to me. I watched a recent Elliot Brooks video on "longer" novels and she was listing things like 'Shadow of the Gods'. And I was like, really!? SotG is considered CHONKY! Seems the attention span of our world today has just fallen for many reasons (thanks TikTok), but like you said, there are plenty of people who are hungry for longer, more epic reads. Hopefully, thanks to indie authors, we will see a return of the epics, or maybe at least less constraints on length.

I’ve traditionally published two fantasy novels. Both times the publisher made me trim a series worth of ideas into a stand-alone. I’m self-publishing my next book

Putting a 100k word cap on epic fantasy is sacrilege.

Traditional publishing might be forsaking epic and dark fantasy, but that doesn't mean novelists are. There are a lot of indie authors out there, like myself, trying bring back long-term epic stories. We need to head in the direction of indie-publishing so that passionate, unrestrained stories can be made to the public. The reading community is no longer held at the whim of mainstream publishers, so we need to take advantage of that.

I am from Spain, we have many fantasy writers, i would say thousands. But somehow the anglo writers get more attention. There are much more writers than readers out there. I am sure there are very good novels who aren't popular because the writer doesn't live in an English speaking country. One example is Onmagier, a trilogy of epic fantasy from the Netherlands kinda popular in continental Europe translated to a few languages (including Spanish) but almost unknown in the English speaking world. The epic fantasy looks like it's dying because anglo publishers barely translate foreign books besides the Witcher from Poland which was an exception.

My concern is about things NOT shifting back, at least not without a seismic hit series. Look at YA. When Harry Potter was a big hit, many books published in YA targeted both male and female readers, and there was a brief golden age where YA had a variety of stories for many demographics. Then Twilight and Hunger Games came along, became massive hits, and shifted the YA landscape to something almost exclusively romance. Reading in writers’ forums, I have repeatedly seen debut authors wanting to break into YA being discouraged by agents and other would-be authors from featuring teenage male protagonists, or plots that do not focus on romance. Twilight book 1 was published 2005. We are now nearly twenty years into YA being essentially romance-only (although it was a gradual transition, with series like Maze Runner in the interim). Viewed that way, I think it was inevitable that publishing would shift to try to catch these YA readers (and their money!) as they aged up to adulthood. Thus: romantasy.

I may be an outlier here, but I almost never justify the $30 hardcover price for a 300 page book. But I will for the 600+ So any new releases with 100k word cap, well, I come back when there's a $1.99 ebook deal.

Haircut looking sharp Petrik! Great discussion topic. Those word count limits are criminal. A sprawling word count can be a problem, but it can also mean you get a lot of story in one book. As you said, there is no shortage of epic fantasy demand, and no shortage of epic fantasy stories in self-publishing. At worst, I hope this shift brings more readers/authors to indie. I think cheap ebook prices in indie force trad publishers to focus on the paperback market, which means they are more subject to production costs.

It's also about the readers, their level of training (I'm talking about education), their ability to use their remaining energy after completing all the necessary tasks at home and at work (many want something pleasant and that doesn't require a lot of brainpower)

"I don't have anything against Romantasy, I just wish there was more balance in publishing different genres." Yes, thank you! It also reeks of price gouging. I feel like it's less the covering of production costs and more the making of profits when even 300 page books suddenly cost double (or even more) than they used to. One thing I also noticed (which might have to do with book tok and booktube) is that books are put out at an enormous rate. It might just be me, but I get the feeling that as an author, if you put out one book per year, you're already counting amongst the slow writers (?). Anyway, nice video!

The hell of it is, I like romance. Many of my favorite stories of all time are actually romance or fantasy romance. Romance with actual healthy and meaningful communication and emotional connections between characters, mutual respect and mutual support in times of crisis and the maintenance of friendships and familial relationships outside the main romance. What's being marketed as romance these days is not the romance I want. It's all so shallow, lacking meaningful themes and conflicts and... you get the idea.

I think part of the problem is the way books are typically priced. Publishers think that, since they are going to charge $20 for your book no matter how big it is, it needs to be short so they can maximize profit. But epic fantasy fans who like ginormous bookstoppers would probably agree to pay more for those books rather than see them just stop making them! Just my 2 cents--great video.

It's so true. This is happening everywhere, not just in the publishing industry and it's just sad. Companies just want one thing: more money. They cut down on EVERYTHING, just to have a little more profit in their pockets. It's very unfortunate how things have gotten to this point. And i dont know how it's going to stop. Also the thing about spice: It's so frustrating how people only care about "spice". There's more to a book than just spicy scenes! Character development, plot pacing, topics the book might touch on (eg The Rape of Nanking in The Poppy War). It's jist frustrating to see a lot of people caring about spicy scenes.. Also, great pun about Dune. I laughed out loud 😂

I am now 47 years old. I've been reading Fantasy since I was 13, and growing up I was fortunate enough to read Tad Williams, Raymond Feist, Robert Jordan and David Eddings. Even early Terry Goodkind was really good. More recently Brandon Sanderson has earned his place among the greats for me. I truly was spoiled in the riches while growing up. Thus my love for the genre was formed. The only reason I managed to pass along the "bug" of fantasy to my kids was because me and my wife introduced them to the old masters. Unfortunately, these days, we are reduced to an handful of gems a year (such as the recent "The will of the many"), and that's it. Not nearly enough for instilling the love of the genre to a teen starting out his literary journey without guidance (as I was back in the day).

Wow this is kind of depressing, but I can't blame it on Trad Pub. Readers' tastes change and things go in and out of "fad." I'm sure we will be due for an epic fantasy resurgence soon. In the mean time, I'm happy I'm self published. I couldn't imagine writing a 100K sequel to Dragon Mage!

Thank you for making this video! I like discussing topics like this with irl writer friends, and I couldn't resist commenting below. I have some dissenting opinions, but I also haven't read all the same books you have, so please take my thoughts with a grain of salt. I think the main problem is publicity and trends, as you pointed out. Most of the time, people will buy books that get good marketing, and that's it's own issue. We need a way to get epic fantasy to blow up on TikTok I guess lol (I can't believe I'm typing that but it might actually be true). The relative lack of publicity is absolutely due to trends, but I'm also struggling to think of a time when epic fantasy was getting a lot of publicity outside of ASOIAF, Kingkiller, and Sanderson type unicorns. Especially for longer books. I don't think epic fantasy has ever had its "golden age" in the first place. It's always been just a few standouts, and then otherwise, epic fantasy as a genre and its authors go relatively unnoticed by mainstream readers. I do enjoy chonky epic fantasy books, and I'm one of the people who still thinks that most of them do not have plots or prose that support the page count. I think this about many of the classic and most often-recommended fantasy titles as well as newer ones. I don't think that pushing authors to lower the word count is a huge problem yet, especially if once authors are allowed to publish those relatively shorter books, publishers are then more lax about letting them write longer books as an established name for an established audience. I feel like authors should "prove themselves" before publishing huge tomes. Rothfuss, for example, should be an exception, not an expectation. I feel for Peter McLean and other authors in his position though - being told to make your book that much shorter on a deadline must be terribly stressful and I think it's on the publishers to communicate what they want earlier and more clearly to authors and agents. I think that fantasy authors should take pacing and efficient prose into account way more often. Most books just don't need to be that long, and shouldn't be so dryly written even if the world is rich and the magic is cool. I feel like I'm still tolerating prose in most fantasy books instead of enjoying it, and I would love it if more authors challenged themselves to go beyond purely serviceable prose more often, to overexplain less, and more. It's at least equally important to plot out books and structure chapters with an eye toward efficient pacing that supports the story they're telling, which I feel is missing from too many fantasy books. As long as authors are allowed to publish multiple books in their series, I think it's fine if they work on structuring their series in such a way that each book is satisfying and under a certain word count. I think this applies both to epic fantasy and to ALL fantasy, including adult romantasy and YA fantasy, most of which are much too long for the stories they tell. I dislike most romantasy and am grateful that publishing has defined romantasy separately from the rest of fantasy, but I am frustrated that romantasy is clogging up social media and book publicity in general especially in the adult space.

Maybe this will mean that my favourite format, the mass market paperback, will make a comeback because of the cost factor. Interesting discussion so thank you.

I usually never read fantasy books below 400 pages in length because they don't have the time to truly provide an immersive and emotional experience. Building a vibrant world and making me care about the characters takes time and pages, urban fantasy being the exception. In fact, I've recently shifted to almost entirely reading fanfics and story-focused and original visual novels because they don't let outside restrictions get in the way of the stories they're trying to tell. Restrictions on authors directly hampers the quality of their work. Authors changing their works should be done on the basis of constructive criticism provided by beta readers and editors and not industrial demand, IMHO. Right now I mostly read good indie books and VNs because they have a palpable sense of life and passion in them, and aren't afraid to break the moulds set by the publishers. It's genuinely sad that publishers are so determined to trade creative freedom for extra profit.

It became clear to me that this was the case when in the entire trad pub industry there was exactly ONE adult epic fantsy debut last year. One! Godkiller by Hannah Kaner. All the other epic fantasy debuts published last year were either debuted as self-pub first and then republished, published by authors who debuted in other genres and made a name for themselve there, or published by non-debut authors. It's sad.

I’m just starting my journey of self publishing my books, all epic fantasy. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what genres will last, which will remain popular, which ones will see lulls. I think it’s a fantastic time for epic fantasy writers who want to self publish, but that could change. I think it’s best if authors don’t follow the trends and stick to what they love and know. There may be lulls that come and go, but I enjoy reading the epic fantasy that’s available to us now, and I hope I can provide an abundance of stories myself for the genre in the future. Good video, always an enjoyable watch 👍🏻

Loved hearing your thoughts on this topic too, Petrik.

“If you want to read a book about spice, read DUNE.” 🤣 So true! Wow, I did not know fantasy authors were being so restricted by word count, and I’m going to guess this is a new thing. Thanks for sharing about that and for shouting out the video discussion Tori and I did! Happy epic fantasy reading, Petrik!

This is why I'm glad the indie markwt has boomed and is being taken more seriously. Trad can push their trends all they want, but we have so many genres and subgenres, and even subcategories within to reach these niches. I don't think, because of indie fantasy, that epic fantasy will ever die. Itsgetting easier for indies to reach bookstores and market places to the point that many readers don't realize they're buying indie. And that's not even getting into the covers. All hail epic fantasy!

I've been noticing this problem for a few years now where I live in Europe, with some publishers abandoning fantasy series (leaving them incomplete) to release these other "fantasies" instead. Not only that, but they are refusing to reprint books they have already translated and are popular. And I would like to suggest you watch a video made by a channel called Chieko Kurokumo since she also got right to the root of the problem.

I am a person who mostly reads nonfiction and horror nowadays but my younger sister reads epic fantasy and has told me how it’s only romantasy that’s being published lately as you said. I hope we can go back to more variety someday. Also loved the Dune reference 😂

I think the one thing to keep in mind is that especially for smaller publishers, it isn't about maximising profits so much as it is about generating profits in the first place. Also in a time of audiobooks and digital books, the market for traditional books is shrinking, so having smaller books means also smaller losses , when those books don't find success. Interestingly enough, here in Germany it has basically been this way for a very long time. The original run of Wheel of Time in Germany was 37 books, the five GoT books had been split up into ten books originally, the Shannara books were split up in duologies or trilogys for the German market and so on. Same goes for Sanderson's Stormlight Chronicles and even Stand-alones fell victim to this; I just read Kay's Tigana, and even that had been split up into two parts by the German publisher. No I'm no author, and I don't have any expert insight into traditional publishing, but I'm wondering if new and upcoming authors of Epic Fantasy couldn't play that system and write their books accordingly. 130k words are still ~500 pages, so instead of a 1k pages tome, just publish two 500 pages-books instead. Still the same content, still epic fantasy, and if you write at a consistent pace, readers don't have to wait so long for a possible sequel. Personally, I would probably even prefer this, because with my tbr being as huge as it already is (and still growing), I already had to make that decision to read either one huge tome or to read several smaller books instead. It's one of the reasons Sanderson's Stormlight chronicles and Malazan are still waiting to be read by me, because I also want to read comparatively shorter books like Hannah Kaner's Fallen Gods series, or S.L. Huang's Water Outlaws, and as much as I love sprawled-out Epic fantasy, I also love other genres and don't want to constantly have to chose one over the other. So maybe it's just because I'm so used to it, but I kinda prefer the German way of splitting up things (ok they went completely nuts with WoT, I have to admit), because it allows me to jump between genres without having to feel like I left a book in the middle just to read something else before finishing it (and yeah, I'm aware that it's psychology playing a role here).

I'm working on my 1st book which is epic high fantasy/sci-fi mixed in. Currently a bit over 100K words, imo the word count being lower does not lessen the books quality. I am currently writing the final battle scene and will wrap up book 1 soon, I can see where making books 200Kish can make them too drawn out and ruin the pacing. On the flip side I love The Stormlight Archive, it all comes down to how well it is written, nothing to do with the length tbh.

This was a very interesting video. I do want their to be space for a big epic fantasy books, but I do think there is at least one upside to the current state of the industry. Namely, I think a lot of fantasy authors have gotten used to writing massive books, and so they never ask if the book really ought to be shorter. Sometimes a story is better when it is less than 100,000 words. I read some new fantasy books, and they often feel quite bloated.

Damn that shade at GRRM is the best I've seen since Christopher Ruocchio said something along the lines of: "You can afford to wait for the next book a lot longer than I can afford to not write it. See, us non-millionaire authors actually have to write." 😂

As a diverse reader, even I have to say I agree and I’m glad you’re voicing your opinion and concern over this. I’ve read many a ‘romantasy’ book but it’s become such an over-saturated genre and now it’s near impossible to find something fresh in it. I do miss chunky, long-winded epic fantasy books and I hope this current era will eventually come to pass and we’ll be able to find some balance again. Also, loved your comment about spice! Laughed out loud so hard. ❤ There’s a series The Magister Trilogy by C.S. Friedman (published in 2007 if I’m not mistaken) that reminded me of the fact you can write a great epic fantasy book and have spice in the story without said spice being redundant and repetitive. At least that was my experience with the trilogy when I read it many years ago. It was excellent and I wouldn’t even categorize it as ‘romantasy’, it was a high fantasy story that had some spice. I think there’s potential for you to enjoy it, too. 😊 The first book is called Feast of Souls and yes, the original cover was that atrocious. 😂

Petrik...I love your video. Thank you. As someone dissolutioned with fantasy atm...it makes sense to me to realise that a large part is the marketing of publishers. I love a huge epic, we don't see many pushed these days. You're reminding me how much I love the genre

The Dune spice joke made me laugh out loud 😅 I definitely agree with you on all points here. It’s a shame to see the books we love taking a backseat to what’s popular right now, but at least it gives us time to read the hundreds of backlog epic fantasy books on our TBRs!

Great video Leo! And your input is spot on in many aspects! Remember, BIG organizations are slow & more inflexible to change than agile Indie authorpreneurs, and yet big organizations (public ones) are also at the mercy (via CEOs) to shareholders, and face immesurable pressure there. That is one of the reason there are so few big trad houses left with consolidations Big trad are big organizations. NOTHING can take precedence over the bottom line. The beauty is, there are plenty of big chonkie, epic Indie fantasy books coming out every day! Enjoy what is on your bookshelf, as you note! You will indeed find plenty to enjoy over the next decade! Happy reading!

Lets see, just finished Empire of silence, almost done with Leviathin wakes, about to start Oathbring then Of Darkness and Light will be started right after that. I plan on reading Assassin's Apprentice soon, and i need to finish The Bone ship series and plan on Reading Lock Lamore soon.....I'm doing what i can to keep Epic SFF up.

Yeah I feel this. Currently on a 5th polish trimming my novel down 10k words from 235k now and I’ve already started book 2. I feel like it may be more enticing for new authors to write more in their series. I’ve found it’s improved my first novel, while also pinning me ahead of this next year if I’m unable to grab an agent. The stories must be told! So indie will be the path for epic fantasy until trad pub feels differently lol. So far responses for my word count (226k) hasn’t been good. But it’s the expectation

Even in Indie pubs, there's a pressure to stay under a certain word or page count due to printing costs. My part 1 debut epic fantast was a little over 250k words, and i was strongly advised to cut it into 3 books. So a planned trilogy and novella is now looking like 9 books. Then to learn (quite recently) that most indie fantasy authors try to keep each book between 50k-60k words. I experimented with a stand-alone romantasy at 265k words, and the cost to print and distribute is ridiculous. To make just $1 for every physical copy, the retail price needs to be over $35. A tip i got from other authors was to shrink the font size so it cuts down on the page count and cost. BUT so many readers have complained about tiny print. It kind of feels like being backed against a cliff by a polar bear. And while we'd think "at least there's not a limit to ebooks, because there's no printing cost", certain distributors will force a higher retail price. It's insane! If i didn't know any better, i'd say it's trying to push out owning physical books and push out indie authors entirely. Makes me sad because i love epic fantasy -- diving into new worlds, new perspectives, new possibilities.

I just released a novella about hillbilly vampires, and someone asked me if there was spice in it 🙄 I know it's not epic fantasy, but the demand for smut is real

I am actually writing an epic fantasy right now and you gave me a lot of things to think about! I also read epic fantasy. I love Brandon Sanderson, of course, and I'm not sure where Sarah J Mass fits, but I jumped on that bandwagon and am going through her series right now. I'm still trying to figure out if I like her writing style. However, they are a long epic series.

Over a decade ago I was writing my first drafts, each of them around 150k. Until I realized that while doing everything by myself, writing too long stories was not a good idea, otherwise I would take too long to publish anything. However, my latest project is around 75k words, but divided in 4 short stories following the same characters. I’m a huge fan of Robert E. Howard; his worldbuilding of Conan was amazing, through mostly short stories and novellas.

Thanks for your video. You are so right😢 I see the same problem in France…

Cozy fantasy and romantasy are popular right now because there’s a wider need for them in the culture at the moment. The world is in really bad shape right now and a lot of people are struggling financially and socially. So it’s not a wonder that a cozy low stakes feel good fantasy to escape like Legends and Lattes would appeal to a lot of people. And modern dating has become all but impossible for both men and women, so it’s little wonder that people want to vicariously feel some romance in their lives via literature. But these are just symptoms of the times we live. Eventually they will pass and people will want to go on epic adventures again.

Interesting video, Petrik! I think this is a sad trend in fantasy books. And unfortunately, I see this trend in other genres too- soft sci-fi, cozy mystery, and chick-lit in contemporary fiction and literature. These "softer" books were there before- but there are WAY more now! I've tried these types of books- they're usually bad- on all fronts: plot, pacing, writing style. I don't understand the cult following for some of these authors. And the romantasy upsurge is disturbing! What does it say about the mindset of the public at large that these shorter, fluffier, cozier, spicier books are so popular?! Where's the quality...?

Well... shit. I've been writing an epic fantasy series (technically portal fantasy, but it's essentially epic fantasy with a few contemporary elements) for the last 2 1/2 years and I'm still trying to find a literary agent for the first book (I'm writing the 8th one, at the moment. I've been keeping the word count for each around 100-115k, but some of them have cliffhanger endings, so it's essentially one story divided into 2 books.) If traditional publishers aren't looking, I'm probably going to have to self-publish.

My two cents on this topic is that I still have much established epic fantasy to read so I do not personally desire for 10 new titles to be released every month. There would be no point when I am currently still exploring the known greats I have no time to explore the new voices right now.

Trad publishing has always been like this. Even when I was querying my YA fantasy at a 120k the agents that requested suggested I shave off 20k. If I'd done that the book would loose some of its world building. The chapters were precise and I do know for a fact that the story wasn't lagging as multiple eyes were on it and comwmtwd how cinematic it was. I eventually pulled the book because I wasn't going to sacrifice the eccence of the story. Publishing still refuses to acknowledge that New Adult is a genre. They just shove those books into YA category to bridegroom the gap. Javent touched a trad pub book in years. They arw too formulaic. Sticking to self published books is the wisest choice I ever made.

This makes me think of The Five Warrior Angels books. Author said they made him publish 3 books instead of 5. Even when publishers agree to run the book, they're always trying to appeal to the masses.

Very well said! Always so hard to hold onto vision when business gets involved. A battle that goes all the way through history.

I find this pretty crazy, mainly because of my own reading habits, but I am not very likely to read any fantasy book under 500 pages. Oo well, at least indies are still doing it, excited to start the Echoes Saga soon.

There is another problem. The influence of pop culture. Cinema and Video game industry ghave a real impact on publishing. In the end of 2000 there was the age of "hoody" fantasy, stories about assassins. The publishers have surfed on the success of Assassin's Creed. Recently there are few novels about multiverse because Marvel Cinematic Universe. But there is no big movie on epic fantasy. And no video hit on epic fantasy without dark.elements. The mediatic environnement doesn't fit for the publishers.

There are a couple of things i’ll blame: 1. Paper costs. Boomed during covid, now agents and editors want fantasy books shorter than like 100k. Not all, but definitely some. How would Epic Fantasy manage to thrive in that same environment? 2. Rothfuss and George. I listened to a podcast a few years ago and an established author straight up said his publisher didn’t want to risk an epic fantasy series because of another “unnamed” very popular fantasy series that wasn’t writing books anymore so the publisher was just stuck.

I'm planning on spending the next 25 years of my life (minimum) on an epic fantasy graphic novel series, so I sure hope that pendulum swings back 😅.

Totally agree with you about most of the concerns that you have, but like you, my backlog and TBR are so huge that I will be OK for years. Also that does not include re-reads which I also love to do. We will be fine. The Wheel of Time turns. Be well, stay safe

Just started the video so forgive me if you mention it later but I kinda feel like a decent amount of notable recent epic fantasy have been web novels (Lord of Mysteries, Wandering Inn, and Practical Guide to Evil come to mind) but obviously web novels are still a very hard sell to most readers so it’s really unfortunate that we’ve sorta gone in this direction PS: while I’m on break from Lord of Mysteries at the moment, I know you said it’s on your TBR so I wanna say that you’ll absolutely love it if you don’t mind a pretty poor translation!

We should get the revenue gain comparison of indie and traditional publishing. There should be some hard numbers in platforms like Amazon. If the numbers tell the same story for Epic Fantasy, maybe it will change traditional publishers' minds.

I feel like the publishers should charge a bit more for chunkier books to make up for the costs. However, they may assume that if a random book reader goes into a store or Amazon they may buy the cheaper book which would be shorter and not sell as many as the longer books that cost more. I disagree with this and believe fans of the genre will buy expensive longer books if that's what they want. But I think publishers are short sited. I think many of the publishers that make decisions on new authors are most likely folks that have been there a long time and are much older. If some folks were say maybe only in their 30's and in control of these important decisions, things may be a bit different. What do you think? And again, I think many people would buy the thicker book is they know what their looking for for another $5-$7 or so.

Echoing what you mentioned about your backlog... I think not having a lot of new epic fantasy from traditional publishing is a good thing, for us as consumers. (While it might be terrible for new, upcoming authors) I think we have enough to catch up on from the last two-three decades.

The very fastest way to get me to stop reading a blurb and move on is for the word “romance” to appear. I’m so over it.

I wouldn't mind saying that I write epic fantasy. My Victorian-era novel, Adjutant, is coming out on May 15th. It is a 680-page epic fantasy with multiple POVs, battles, political intrigue, seven distinct magic systems, and history. It's a book, one of a trilogy, and I'm not sure if anyone would be interested.

130k sounds nice. The Runelords is very epic and generally the shorter books. A novel by certain standards only needs to be 40k. But I say this as someone who reads a lot of that 1970s and before fantasy

I like reading a wide variety of genres (which includes both epic fantasy and romantasy). The publishers jump on these trends, and oftentimes, it results in rushed/mediocre books. So not only are we likely to miss out on great epic fantasies, but the Romantasies that get published are likely to be worse than the popular ones out now. Just like what happened years ago with The Hunger Games and YA/dystopian books that followed.

Great video mate and totally agree. So glad that Self-publishing is booming but it’s also sad to see how fantasy is being hit in traditional publishing. But epic will come back! Ed

I blame also Covid. Because during crisis the publishers have contracted debt. Have made loan. Today they must repay the bank. And they must publish hyper bankable books. Romance are enormous niche they bring back much money. The rentability imperative are the main cause to choose romantasy.

Yeah I’ve gotten into epic fantasy in the last year and I notice all the fantasy is mostly romance heavy now. I’m not into romance right now in my books so I don’t love that. Like you said it would be nice to have a balance. But I’m all for the cozy fantasy!

You make an excellent point that things are cyclical. Trad publishers will get back on board at some point. Self-publishing is such a viable option now, as you have helped contribute to, that I think we will have plenty to read. Also, as a business person, I have to think that new publishing companies may emerge that are outside of all the consolidated huge firms. Now go read Dungeon Crawler Carl! It's so good on audible. You'll also love He Who Fights With Monsters. You can blame your TBR on me :)

Very well explained for those of us who aren't in the weeds with the pub industry.

Good video. Always good to hear your personal views. Seems like this is part of the greater ticktockification trend of popular media.... shorter, faster, the opposite of what an epic fantasy is. Maybe this is a good thing... pushing more writers to self-publish what traditional publishers dont want to.

That's why I'm glad to be an Indie Author and I write epic fantasy :D No word count limits for me. I'll use as many words as it takes to tell the story the way it needs to be.

I've been saying it for a while, but this is why indie is winning! Very disheartening to read that update from Peter McLean, I had no idea things were so 'dire', if you will. That said, I do like that there are so many more vibes, spices, and flavours to try out under the fantasy umbrella now; there's something out there for everyone! Great video, Petrik, thanks for sharing your thoughts!!

Given how book reviewers/readers with platforms are speaking up against the unfair and greedy practices of traditional publishing industry, there is change to be made especially in the indie publishing industry. I appreciate how much indie is growing thanks to creators like you who take time to research and promote new books. Also, while there is no doubt that traditional publishing is mostly focused on cozy fantasy and romantasy, these genres are not the cause of the "downfall" of epic fantasy or because people want to read these books. I know that is not what you meant in your video but there is a constant conversation that makes fun of people who are currently reading those books that promotes prejudice and a certain stigma over romance, spice, and cozy fantasy. The publishing industry is to blame alone. It only cares about money and while it seems like readers of these favorited genres are getting all the attention, there are many issues with the quality of the books being published and due to the greediness of this industry, it also takes away opportunities for other great new authors who are hoping to write original romantic stories. They might be publishing more of those books but in truth they're recycling the same old stories that romance readers loved in the beginning. Imagine ASOIAF being published over and over again. Anyways I know this got a bit long & I appreciate you if you read all of this. Again, I know that is not what you meant on your video and you addressed the issue with lots of respect. I only wanted to add to the conversation and also bring awareness that traditional publishing is hurting all genres and readers and most importantly, any author who wants to write new and original stories. This is just my experience as someone who reads epic fantasy, sci-fi, and romance.

its probably moving in the same direction as the romance market, where you basically have to become a success in self publishing and then the publishers will swoop in afterwards.

I do feel that that epic fantasy written by and for women is gaining speed. I think it’s just “mantasy” that is being given less shelf space as patriarchal stories become less relevant to the zeitgeist. Romantasy is being given heavy spotlight, but I think this will even out to fantasy that is still romance heavy but more focused on logical world building and magic systems, but, you-know with more female centric stories.

I’m a huge Romantasy reader. I also really love epic fantasy. Publishing is so frustrating, because all they care about is money. They’re just going to swamp the industry with cozy fantasy and Romantasy to the point that even people who love it will be sick of it. I will pay money faster for a Ryan Cahill right now than I will for the latest, most generic Romantasy or Legends and Lattes knockoffs. Because they’re just printing a ton of the same things because that thing sold really well that one time. Fourth Wing was lightning in a bottle. There isn’t going to be another thing like it. Not even book 2 of the same series was like it. This is why so many of us are ordering from the UK. They at least in many ways seem to care more about printing good books, even while they are also catering to the popular book of the moment. Here in the US, they’re just throwing things at us. You liked Fourth Wing? Here are these other 27 books about dragon riders. You like Legends and Lattes? Here are these 27 other cozy fantasies that are that with different names. I’m sick of people not being interested in a book if it doesn’t have spice in it. It reeks of the publishing industry just catering to extremely immature demands. There are too many readers that enjoy epic fantasy and other non-romance sub-genres for them to continually only cater to smut-hungry readers. Like I said, I love Romantasy, but it does NOT need to become the focus of the entire industry. We need variety. And I really hope they don’t start putting a cap on author’s word counts. All it will do is drive more people to indie or self publishing, which will cause customers to by those instead of traditionally published books. Their greed is out of control. Also, as a side note, it’s super trash of them to have turned down any number of indie authors until they see them selling well in the indie field. Then they get desperate and throw money at the authors. Honestly, I wish more authors would tell the publishers to go to blazes and keep making their money on their own. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth that they jump all over anything indie that is doing well, so they can make money off of people they previously ignored.

It's pretty insane when that book that you're talking about the fourth wing it's just horrible I think us lovers a fantasy as long as we continue to read that it'll be fine the authors will always still be there and there will always be new ones that we will love also just keep being us and keep reading these novels and it will be great love the video keep making more I'm reading the Echos Saga and I'm pretty sure it's Epic Fantasy it's so action packed loving it the crazy thing is is there so many books out there even if they stop publishing new Epic Fantasy we will still have a whole bunch to read it's pretty crazy that they're trying to take away the pages or their word count though that's wild

I was feeling this without being able to place a word on it!! I felt like every other month a new series was popping up that I was getting hooked but when I check out new books I’m kinda meh … I love epic fantasy and sci/fi and the romanstcy just isn’t what I’m looking for - awesome opinion video

I burst out laughing at Dune

On word count, it reminds me about Tamora Pierce thanking JK Rowling for changing the publishing industry for children/YA as before Harry Potter, children's book authors were only allowed to publish short books, and her Trickster's Duet would have had to be a quartet instead of a duology. My impression is that the publishing industry is similar to the movie studios - they are conservative and it takes a blockbuster to change them, but then they try to copy the success of the blockbuster with similar works, and that becomes the new status quo. Bookborn's recent video on studios taking the wrong lessons from successful adaptations was interesting! Personally, l also want to know about spice, but it's because l want avoid it! I find it unfortunate that some books have spicy scenes when to me it doesn't seem necessary at all... They are great stories already, they don't need to be spiced up.

I do like some romance and cozy fantasy here and there, but my heart definitely beats for epic fantasy (and some sci-fi ^^)!! Would be a shame to potentially miss out on some future epic greatness because of the current restraints put on authors. But then again, in the indie space some authors are doing exceptionally well with bigger books and longer series. So we will for sure never run out of those (not to mention all the backlist books/series to catch up on, haha). 🤓 Also, loved the spice/Dune line 🤣🤣

Self-publishing writer here who writes mainly Romantasy with heavy world and character building. I think the publishing trends will always be wild, but if people want to write bigger books they should look into self-publishing if the trad route isn't going the way they want. Many people love big books but big house publishers are always going to be worried about a profit, look at the publisher or Iron Flame (Fourth Wing book 2) and the drama surrounding the release of the book, they were looking for a quick buck and it was a massive failure. Trends will always come and go but Fantasy will always be around. To writers, if you read this, write the book you want to read and your readers will find you. I want to get into more indie published fantasy, but I don't know where to start and I know I will fall down a rabbit hole.

I made the same comment on the video of the other youtuber who made a similar video as yours, but I think copying it here too is worth it. The decline in popularity of epic fantasy has way more to do with the fact that most people would rather read 30-60 books of 200-400 pages each, written by different authors featuring different subgenres, styles, plotlines and characters, than read a decalogy of 1200-page books by the same author following the same characters and the same plot written in the same style. Also, I imagine bragging about reading 60 books a year, rather than 10 books, gets you more clout on social media. And even without the bragging factor, psychologically speaking, a person would probably feel like they've accomplished more having read a higher number of books, even if it's technically the same number of pages. Finally, I don't think the paper-crisis and printing costs have fully resolved since the beginning of the pandemic. I imagine the trade wars with China will make that even worse, not better, as printing in China costs waaaaaaaay less for publishers all over the world. In other words, we're basically experiencing this century's version of the Great Depression and the rise of pulp fiction. And ebooks make publishers way less money than printed books, as authors get a larger share on ebook sales than on printed books for obvious reasons, so even though the existence of ebooks should theoretically nullify this, the publisher still has to consider the cost-effectiveness of what they can print. Betting their money on 20 authors of smaller standalone novels is way safer than 1 author of a chunky decalogy. As for the difference between trad pub and indie pub, the explanation is quite simply investors. It isn't enough that an investor make back their return on money invested or even just make a profit, they have to make several times the return on the money, or else they'll invest in a whole 'nother industry with a higher profit return; sth sth late-stage capitalism sth sth. An indie author is in charge of their own creative direction and most of their costs are one-time upfront costs (outside of the percentage given to distributers with each sale), after this cost is met in sales, _any_ sale is pure profit irrespective of how many you have per year. A publishing house has to please their investors, and usually has to pay their employees by the hour irrespective of the number of sales made per year, and also has the author's and the distributers' share on top of that too, so they have to perpetually increase their profit just to be able to keep their employees and their investors from flocking away, nevermind filling the owner's own pocket. Also also, according to S&P Global in an article titled "Private equity investments in publishing companies up in 2023", there were several crazy-numbered investment deals made in the publishing industry last year. This in theory sounds good, but in practice means a fire was basically lit under the a$$es of the publishing industry to return several times of that amount in profit or they'd go bankrupt. I think they're just minimizing as much risk and maximizing as much profit as they can. Maybe they'll drop the pressure once they make the returns, but are the number of readers going up by that much...?

Just about the time I thought Petrick never ages (his hair/scruff always look the exact same length in every video), he goes and gets a haircut :D Just teasing. Looks good. I'm torn. I love epic fantasy, but I also get enjoying shorter works as well. The Rage of Dragons was 535 pages and that felt about perfect to me. You can only read so many 800-900 page books. And I know some people who won't read anything over 300 pages.

I feel like the biggest problem with Epic Fantasy is the length. Epic fantasy books are definitely the longest books in the market and I think it's harder to get a reader to invest their time and money into a super long book from a new author they haven't heard of rather than a super short or normal length book from a new author. Especially since longer books are more expensive since they have a higher cost of making.

Part of me really doesn't mind it, though. Not everything has to be a doorstopper trilogy and THAT has been a trend for the longest time as well.

I think that the size of Fantasy books in recent years has gotten out of hand. I am older, so I remember when a Fantasy trilogy would be epic and everything we loved but maybe came in at 200K for the whole trilogy. Earlier works are even smaller. There is really nothing wrong with that. There is so much bloat out there - just think of WoT - that could be streamlined so much and would cause so many more people to read it. I miss the days of standalones and slim books. A lot of us don't have the extra time to spend on these massive series. We end up having to decide on one long series of massive tombs - like WoT - or a collection of smaller trilogies with a bunch of standalones and maybe a couple duologies or a quartet. For me, the answer in that question is clear as crystal. As an aside, there is self publishing and kickstarters. I know is sounds like a slap in the face, but many authors - great authors - in Fantasy and all other genres (as well as non genre and non fiction) have had to go this route. The end result will be that they can write the larger books if they want and if the audience is there for it that's wonderful. We are in a new age of publishing - and in truth this publishing that is ending is not that old (only a couple generations) so really we have nothing to complain about. Thanks for letting me rant, Andrew

Well done! Awesome video

As a newer author myself, longer books are harder to sell without a proven track record to fall back on. Readers are hesitant to invest in a 600 page book from a new author, but 300ish pages is much more palatable. As a reader, this rule applies to me too. When I find a author I love, length is no longer an issue. Dresden Files is a case in point for me. I'd read them, no matter what the length.

We need a re-evaluation of what epic means. Epic does not equate excess which honestly seems to be the trend these days. Look at Lord of the Rings: it was originally conceived as one volume, and it's

I wonder if the future is self published. I know nothing about publishing but by design if a person or people have any sort of control over your story it seems like it can go bad. I remember Erikson being interviewed on A.P.s channel and he made a comment along the lines of he couldnt make X story longer due to publishing page limits. If you want to write a 6k page book why can't that be allowed in todays publishing? I dont want authors to play by these rules anymore. IMO it just leads to control. Nobody should tell what an author can or cannot write but the author themselves. Sure editors are needed but not the level of control publishers have now.

Can you give me some recommendations for entries of epic fantasy , I wanna start reading this subgenre, but I'm a bit intimidated by the size of its worlds and the number of characters it has .

great vid. Explained it really well.

During the discovery phase of the anti-trust suit that prevented Penguin Random House from buying Simon and Schuster, we learned that between 19% and 50% of traditionally published books (the wording was unclear) fail to sell more than 12 copies. With that in mind, it's not an exaggeration to say that Brandon Sanderson may be subsidizing nearly the entire genre right now.

TBH I'm happy to get a bit of a break from the massive epic fantasy books. I love them to death, they are still my favorite. But they have become bloated and overlong. If the authors of the golden age could write fantastic and meaning full novels in 200-300 pages, they everyone should be able or need to do so. I read The Stars are my Destination recently and my mind was blown away. Granted, those book tended to be on POV and more straightfoward. But with Gen Z coming on the scene after a decade of romance and distopian novels, are we really surprised the market is going to get saturated with that? Our attention spans are shorter than they use to be, some people have very busy lives. Restrictions tends to hone authors talents, I think it'll be good for the genre. Plus, we have a massive uptick with self-publishing. The most exciting books are almost all indie right now. I think the cost of things and the fact that authors can take more risk in terms of stories is making the scene pop out like never before. There's also more resources for indie authors to offer a quality product now, so there's that. I'm looking forward to what comes out in the next 10 years. I think it's going to be a fun decade. i'm bummed out about their message as well, but I think they will make the switch to SP if need be.

I wouldn’t call trends from the past couple years the death of epic fantasy. And it’s always been the case that it’s hard to get longer books published as a debut or when a writer isn’t as successful - authors publishing truly epic length books as a debut has always been rare. It’s always been something that the writer has to fight for to an extent. However, it is true that those constraints are getting harder due to strained supply chains raising the costs of producing physical books (combined with the decline of print books and bookstores generally). So a thing that was already hard is getting harder, but I again wouldn’t call that the death of the genre. What seems inevitable, then, is a focus even more on ebooks and audiobooks due to the lessened overhead (at which point length becomes a pro rather than a con). But does that mean the death of trad publishing? I think it’s highly unlikely. Keep in mind that basically every bestselling indie fantasy author jumps on trad publishing the moment they get the chance (including yet another example in this video), implying that most authors themselves still see the benefit of trad publishing when it’s offered to them.