Book Country member Marshall Ryan Maresca's latest fantasy novel, A MURDER OF MAGES, comes out July 7, 2015! Marshall previously workshopped THE THORN OF DENTONHILL on Book Country. Both novels were picked up by DAW Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House. THE THORN OF DENTONHILL came out last February.

Marshall has gladly agreed to answer questions in this discussion thread about querying, writing, and the publishing process on July 8, 2015. You can post any question you have below.

Thank you!

Janet

I've got a question!

I've read The Thorn of Dentonhill and enjoyed it immensely. My question is this:

What was the editing process like for both novels? When the Editor went through a scene and deemed that it needed tweaking, how did you go about the process? Did the editor collaborate with you thoroughout the editing process? Or were most of the changes done by yourself?

Thanks for considering my question!

Amber

I noticed you have an agent. Did he help place your work with DAW Books or did you submit on your own? Along the same lines, have you ever considered self-publishing your work? Either method works, in my opinion, but I am always curious to learn what motivates an author to choose one over the other. Thanks - and best wishes on the book launch!

--edited by D J Lutz on 7/5/2015, 3:11 PM--

I have a follow-up question

How did you market The Thorn of Dentonhill and A Murder of Mages? How did you go about promoting your novels before and after publishing?

Well! I see a lot that catches my interest. 'Fantasy crime' in a (presumably) gritty port city, very promising indeed. What led you into this intriguing setting? I hope you have a good dose of a new-conceived Sam Spade in there. 

.

How do you promote your thing? Give me some nuts and bolts. What support in terms of marketing do you get from your publisher? Or, at least, what sort of direction? What does your trad publisher do for you that you couldn't do yourself?  (Except put their stamp of approval on your work.) What is the most surprising suggestion that your publisher has made? My last question: Are you having fun?

--edited by Mimi Speike on 7/8/2015, 8:13 AM--

Hello, all!  Glad to be here!   I'm Marshall Ryan Maresca, author of The Thorn of Dentonhill and A Murder of Mages, both now available through DAW Books.  Both books, in early forms, were workshopped and critiqued here on BookCountry.  (In fact, Thorn was one of the very first things up here, back in the day.)

AMBER: 

What was the editing process like for both novels? When the Editor went through a scene and deemed that it needed tweaking, how did you go about the process? Did the editor collaborate with you thoroughout the editing process? Or were most of the changes done by yourself? 

DJ:

I noticed you have an agent. Did he help place your work with DAW Books or did you submit on your own? Along the same lines, have you ever considered self-publishing your work? Either method works, in my opinion, but I am always curious to learn what motivates an author to choose one over the other. Thanks - and best wishes on the book launch! 

Thanks!  He's the one who got it on Sheila's desk.  It's true, DAW has an open submissions policy, but I've heard that slush pile is deep.  I honestly believe it's thanks to him that I'm here with DAW now.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't consider going the self-publishing route.  That option called like a siren from time to time.  But I also knew that I had to try for the traditional route.  I'm a point to the fences, swing as hard as you can kind of guy.  If I didn't TRY, I'd always kick myself.

    
Hi Marshall,

Do you ever deal with self-doubt while writing? If so, how do you deal with it?

Janet

Lucy:

What was the biggest surprise about writing and editing the second book, as compared to the first book? 

That's a tough one.  See, I wrote both books before either sold, so there wasn't a, "Now that I've sold one book, writing this one will be ..." or such.  I did learn a lot about story structure and outlining with THORN, so I had that well worked out when I wrote MURDER.

For me, the big surprise in each one was how tertiary characters "pop" and become more than I originally envisioned for them.  So people like Hetzer in THORN or Sister Alana in MURDER -- characters that didn't even exist in the outline-- became something I had not anticipated when I first put them in.  Both those characters started essentially out of utility, but their personalities blossomed in the writing.

Allen:

Is this book a sequel to Thorn of Denton Hill ?

No, A MURDER OF MAGES is a parallel series to THORN-- same setting, different characters.

There will be a sequel to THORN.   THE ALCHEMY OF CHAOS will come out early next year.

--edited by Marshall R Maresca on 7/8/2015, 3:44 PM--

Amber, I'm going to fold the answer to your second into Mimi's here:

How do you promote your thing? Give me some nuts and bolts. What support in terms of marketing do you get from your publisher? Or, at least, what sort of direction? What does your trad publisher do for you that you couldn't do yourself?  (Except put their stamp of approval on your work.) What is the most surprising suggestion that your publisher has made? My last question: Are you having fun?   

Promotion is a strange beast.  I mean, there's a lot of "invisible" promotion that comes with a traditional publisher.  Just being in a bookstore with a DAW logo on the spine is a lot.  There's behind the scenes stuff with the catalogs they send to bookstores, meetings with sellers, etc. that I don't even have to THINK about. When I went to a Barnes & Noble yesterday, Murder was being placed in the front with high visibility.  That's a thing that gets negotiated behind the scenes.  I couldn't possibly have done all that on my own.  Also, another thing that the traditional publisher does is open doors to reviewers, cross-promotion opportunities, etc.  And with DAW I had a promotion person (the wonderful Nita Basu) who set up a lot of those reviews, cross-promotion blogs, etc.  

Not to mention those covers!  Great covers are also promotion, and I've been really blessed with these.  That's another thing I wouldn't have been able to do on my own.  

Most surprising suggestion?  I tend to be a bit gun-shy on putting too much HERE IS THE WORLDBUILDING in the books-- I don't want the infodump.  So there were a few moments where Sheila said, "No, it's OK, give us a bit more of that."  

YES.  I'm having a blast.

Janet--

Do you ever deal with self-doubt while writing? If so, how do you deal with it?  

I think we all get a bit of "imposter syndrome' while doing this.  I don't have much of a strategy beyond tamping it down and pushing forward.  But part of it is I've got a couple dedicated beta readers, as well as my agent and my editor, who I trust will tell me if something isn't working.  I don't have to worry too much about that inner voice when I've got those outer voices.