In Which I Finally Discuss My Redheaded Stepchild AKA League of Thieves

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Those of you who were here in the OG Days of Nicki On the Internet: The Goodreads Years probably remember LoT, but many of you probably won't since this was a pre-blogging era. So, I'm going to tell you a little story.

The year was 2018, I was a senior in high school, taking classical literature college classes on the side, I hadn't gotten a job yet, and life was good. This was one of my best writing years I've ever had. I wrote and published A Certain Sort of Madness, rewrote and published Winter Cursed. I also wrote the first drafts of Of Gold and Iron and A Winter Dark and Deadly, both of which wouldn't actually be published for a few years yet, because I wrote so many books I couldn't actually keep up with them and edit them fast enough to actually publish. (I have since gotten much faster at editing, but at that stage in my writing career it took me forever to edit anything).

The fifth and final book I wrote in 2018 was a story titled League of Thieves. It's a YA High Fantasy series set in a Middel Eastern themed world about four thieves, a mercenary, an assassin, a cocky smuggler, and a jinni all pitted against each other as they race to the legendary treasure of Amun Hadir, leaving a trail of betrayal and backstabbing in their wake. Except there is a monster hidden amongst the gold of Amun Hadir, and if these thieves aren't careful, they are going to release it onto the world...

It was a long book, clocking in at about 140,000 words long and was just such a wild ride to write. I loved this story so much, so why hasn't it been published yet? Why am I only just now discussing it at any length five years later? Why the redheaded stepchild status?

Well, to answer that for you, I have two words: traditional publishing.

You see, back in 2018 I was not 100% behind the idea of indie publishing. I still thought it would be better for my books if I got them trad-published. The self-publishing market was not quite to the place it has gotten to over these past five years, it has truly grown in leaps and bounds. And at the time, it was still my plan to be a hybrid author (which, you know, could certainly happen. It's just seeming less and less likely). So, everything that I wrote around that time, I divided into two categories. The books that I would self-pub, books that were harder to place in any one genre, that I wrote spinoffs for or multiple series in a single world (like my Amar books), and anything that didn't quite fit into the cookie cutter mold of books publishers were looking for or where I didn't want to lose the rights to the world by selling the story. And then there were the books that I called my high concept stories that I thought would do really well and have a chance out there in the cold cruel world of traditional publishing.

League of Thieves was one of those "high concept" books. As was Of Gold and Iron. Well, since OGaI was shorter and only going to be a trilogy (as opposed to the five books I originally wanted LoT to be), I decided I would start by querying that one since it would be easier to sell. Around that time, I was beginning to grow disenchanted with larger publishing houses and I was against the idea of getting an agent (I still am not entirely sold on the idea, but then I'm a cut out the middle man type person... as is probably shown by the fact that I am self-published, if I can do it myself I will) so I sent OGaI to two smaller press publishers that did not require me to have an agent to submit my book.

The querying process with OGaI was not exactly what a person would call ideal. It started off great. I got a full manuscript request from one of the presses. I really thought I was going to get accepted! And then I heard nothing. Weeks turned to months; we passed the timeframe that they said they would get a response to me by. It turns out that the company that asked for the full manuscript took a break from doing everything for half a year while they made changes to leadership or something, and decided not to tell me. The other one asked for more time to review my manuscript. I was twiddling my thumbs; I basically waited a year and a half just to get an answer from either of those companies only to have them both ultimately turn down OGaI.

I had no idea what to do with OGaI, but after much consideration I eventually decided that self-publishing it was a better option. I was tired of having a perfectly completed, perfectly good story just sit on my hard drive. So, I published it. And I haven't regretted that decision for even a single second since.

I mean... just LOOK at my beautiful baby
(also it's only $0.99 but that sale ends TODAY [11/28/22] so make sure that you snag it while it's that price)

That was my publishing journey for OGaI, as you know (or can look up on my Amazon page) I published that book in September of 2020. Until then, LoT was just sitting on the sidelines waiting to see what I would do with OGaI. After I published it, I turned my attention to LoT and tried to figure out publishing plans for it.

This was something that I pondered for many months while I worked on all of my other projects such as writing RLtG, and continuing my Amar series, and finally editing and publishing A Winter Dark and Deadly. Of Stars and Shadows came out. I wrapped up A Certain Sort of Madness's series and LoT sat on my hard drive watching as all the books I wrote at the same time and even after it were published while I still tried to figure out if I should traditionally or self-publish it.

By this time, I was convinced that self-publishing was a better option for me than traditionally publishing ever could be. But I was not entirely able to give up on my teenage dream of being picked up by a publishing house. LoT was the story I sacrificed to that dream.

One of my biggest peeves with traditional publishers is that if book 1 doesn't do well, they can drop the whole series and leave the author and their readers high and dry (or sometimes if you are lucky they tell you that you have one book to wrap up your series and everything gets crammed into one book and it becomes super rushed, but at least it got to be finished). While I originally planned for LoT to be 5 books long, the first book was a complete story in and of itself. No cliffhangers, there's a resolution. It could technically be a standalone if worst came to worst, right?

But the problem with LoT being a book I planned on sending to a publisher is that I had a lot of books I was working on publishing that had solid deadlines, that I would make money from instead of waiting (possibly a year and a half) for any word about what the publishers were going to do with my book. So, editing LoT and polishing it up kept getting pushed back farther and farther until it just never wound up being done.

Even when I had time to work on LoT I was severely uninspired and would wind up working on something else instead. Something that "needed" to get done first. Finally, I realized the crux of the issue. LoT no longer felt like my book. I was getting it ready to sell it to someone else. That person would hold the rights to the book, decide if there would be a second one, what the cover would look like, even if it would continue to be called League of Thieves. Sure, I would get a say, but the ultimate decision would not be up to me.

And that's when I realized that I didn't want to sell League of Thieves. I didn't even want to query it to see if a publisher would pick it up. Because if they did say yes, I'd be saying no.

Because I want this book to be named League of Thieves

And while I no longer want it to be five books long, I definitely want it to be longer than one book. In fact, I've decided that it will probably be a trilogy.

And I want to release it, I'm tired of pushing it off

And the way to ascertain that all happens is to do it myself. So that's what I'll do. This story of mine, this redheaded stepchild is mine. These characters, these morally gray balls of chaos and energy, belong to me. And their story demands to be told.

I'll post more about this book and its series in the coming weeks! It is a redheaded stepchild no longer.