[Teresa Edgerton]

I've been told by someone who ought to know (an editor) that hardcore fans who go to conventions and post on websites like this one make up a very, very small percentage of the fantasy market. So naturally that larger percentage is who they have to go after in marketing a book, if it's not going to be a financial disaster.

Most of us here might prefer settings where there actually appears to be an economy and a government in place, where there are peasants and potters and candlemakers and wheelwrights all hard at work to keep things going and food on the table, but there are plenty of readers who don't want to know about that sort of thing, who put it all down as boring background information that slows down the story, and are perfectly happy reading about a society that seems to be made up entirely of heroes, magicians, thieves, and innkeepers. By the same token, some of us may know that historically speaking the belief and the practice of magic did not, in fact, end with the Middle Ages, but there are vast numbers of readers who feel that magic and technology are mutually exclusive (as though they didn't have any technology before the Industrial Revolution!) and they don't feel that anything qualifies as a fantasy without a wizard or a dragon on the cover. And I fear that as long as there are more of "them" than there are of "us" nothing is going to change very much very soon.

In writing my own epic (excuse the plug), I made sure to mention the starving peasants, as well as the traders, fishermen, sailors, craftsmen, midwives, et al. I wanted to make it clear that each new place where my characters found themselves had its own economy, customs, architecture, history, and traditions. But I put all those things in to please myself and for readers who like what I like, not because I thought they would sell more books. I don't think they will sell books. If "The Hidden Stars" does well, it will probably be because people like the story and the characters; if it does badly, it will probably be because of the story and the characters, too. A handful of readers may be attracted by those other things, but most people will just skip over them.