Today we’ve got an interview with Brian McClellan, who I’m guessing many of you already know. I was excited to talk to him because he’s one of the few authors who have really pulled off the “flintlock” genre of fantasy, which is a little bit like my Cartographer series. He’s also studied under Brandon Sanderson, and is self-publishing a new series that I have on the Kindle but haven’t dug into yet. Lots to talk about today!
AC: Hi Brian, thanks for joining me. My readers probably know you best for your traditionally published Powder Mage and Gods of Blood and Powder series. Can you tell us a little bit about those two?
BM: Yes! Powder Mage takes place in a universe where magic comes in many forms, including the titular powder mages – men and women who can imbibe common black powder to gain fantastic powers. This is a flintlock fantasy where the technology level is roughly equivalent to our own Napoleonic Era and focuses on a lot of the same themes: revolution, war, kinship, and class division. Powder Mage was my first universe as a professional writer, and encompasses two trilogies and a whole boat load of novellas and short stories.
AC: You’ve also dipped your toe into self-publishing with your Valkyrie Collections series. How is this one different, and why did you decide to take a different route to market?
BM: Valkyrie Collections comes from an idea that has been floating around in my head for years: a collection agent who works for the supernatural elements of this world. It takes place in modern-day Cleveland, Ohio (where I’m from) and is obviously way different than my epic fantasy work. It had more of a sense of humor, is much shorter, and is written in the first person.
We actually made a small effort to sell the first book, Uncanny Collateral, to traditional publishers. I knew from the beginning it would be a difficult sell because it comes in at just 45k words and it’s urban fantasy – two things that most publishers don’t care to touch right now. The responses came back pretty universally as “this is fun, but we have no idea what to do with it.” Since I was already pretty sure that I’d end up selfpubbing it and had built that into my schedule (and wanted to experiment anyways), I just went ahead and did it!
AC: Can you talk a little bit about the biggest differences you’ve found between traditional and self-publishing?
BM: Control is the big one, and something a lot of selfpubbing gurus talk about. You are in control of the art and the editing and cover art and the marketing and everything else. Nobody is going to overrule your decisions. This is a mixed blessing as it’s super nice to be in control, but also most people have NO IDEA how to do any of that stuff and often aren’t knowledgeable enough even to hire the right people that do. Once you’ve got the right contacts, it all costs money – money that would be covered by the publisher in a tradpub situation.
The biggest upside of selfpubbing is that a much greater percentage of the profits go to the author, which is obviously super nice. But as I mentioned, there’s a lot more front-end work and monetary investment you have to put in to earn those profits.
AC: I didn’t realize this until I started doing research for this interview, but I saw you went to Brigham Young University, which is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Are you a member of that church?
BM: Nope. I don’t really understand religion, and never have, even having been raised Mormon. BYU was not a good experience for me, but that’s all I’ll say about that. I have a lot of Mormon friends that I respect a great deal.
AC: BYU has a pretty incredible tradition of producing fantasy authors. During your time there, I heard you got to study with Brandon Sanderson. Can you tell us a little about that?
BM: Brandon was a fantastic teacher. I believe I had him the year Elantris came out (and several subsequent years as creative writing electives were my only A’s), so it was before he was BRANDON SANDERSON. It was great to have a teacher who went at genre writing with a professional’s eye, showing us contracts and telling us what to expect in the business. It was also really cool was watch him grow from a newly published author into the powerhouse he is today. As a bit of a brag, I believe I was his first student to really make the big time (followed quickly by Charlie Holmberg and several others).
AC: Brandon has been a huge influence on so many of today’s fantasy authors. Can you talk some about what other authors have influenced your work?
BM: Oh, there are tons. The people I was reading when I wrote Promise of Blood included Steven Erikson, Joe Abercrombie, and Brandon.
AC: What are you working on now, and what will we see coming out next?
BM: I recently sold a whole new epic fantasy universe to Tor. You can read the announcement here. The first book should be out in 2022 (possibly sooner if I write quickly), and was bought and will be edited by the same editor who acquired both Powder Mage trilogies. Funny enough, she is now Brandon’s editor at Tor so we share that too!
AC: I noticed you do a lot of cons. I’ve never actually done one of those… Do you enjoy them, and what’s your favorite one from the perspective both as a reader and as an author?
BM: I do enjoy them! Cons are basically the water cooler of being an author. It’s one of the few times you get to go hang out with your author friends in person. You also get to meet readers, maybe convert a few new ones, and actually see that real humans are reading and enjoying your work.
I don’t really do cons as a reader, as I’m not really much of a reader any more at all (has something to do with this being my day job and not wanting to take my work home with me). My big local con, FanX Salt Lake, is a really good one. I’ve also done two cons in Poland, which is my best-selling country per capita by a wide margin, and it’s always super cool to be treated like a proper celebrity.
AC: And finally, when not reading or writing fantasy books, what are some of your hobbies that readers may not know about?
BM: I listen to a lot of historical podcasts and audiobooks. The Revolutions Podcast and Hardcore History are both favorites of mine. I play waaaaay too many video games, tending toward city builders and survival sims with a smattering of RPGs thrown in there. I also play in a weekly streaming roleplaying game on twitch with a few of my author friends every Tuesday night called Typecast RPG. So you should all totally come watch us play.
AC: And that’s all I have with Brian! We’ve shared a lot of links today, so I won’t repeat them all, but you can click the covers above to find his books on Amazon, the link for Typecast RPG, or go to https://www.brianmcclellan.com for everything you ever wanted to know about Brian.