Nicole Evelina asked Patricia Bracewell:

Did you find it hard to place a pre-Conquest novel with a traditional publisher? I've been having trouble with that and have heard of a few others with the same issue. Any advice?

Patricia Bracewell Hi Nicole. I found an agent very quickly, but placing the novel with a publisher took two years, much to our surprise. After over a year of rejections that were full of compliments for the book, but concerns that the time period was too tough a sell I made some revisions, following my agent's advice: a new opening, a new title, a greater sense of threat. The basic story did not change at all. Meantime, Game of Thrones appeared on HBO, and suddenly the publishing landscape changed. So many factors go into the acquisition of a book - and many of them have nothing to do with the book itself. My advice? Persistence. There are more and more authors writing about pre-Conquest England: Hollick, Cornwell, James Aitcheson, Justin Hill, Nicola Griffith, V.M. Whitworth. The History Channel's The Vikings series is heading into its third season and Cornwell's Saxon Tales will hit the airwaves in 2015. The vikings and the Anglo-Saxons are making some headway in our culture, and publishers are bound to take notice. Write the best book you can write, and then hope that luck and timing work in your favor. Meantime, work like heck on your next book. Persistence!

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