Self-publishing and trends

kaitie · Mar 1, 2012

I was reading an article the other day about how now that Jeremy Lin is popular, there are several books being released about him. I don't know where it was anymore, and to be honest don't even recall if they were self-published or commercially published (we know publishers can get a book out fast if they feel a need), but it got me thinking.

One of the advantages we've discussed about self-publishing is that it allows you to catch a trend. For instance, if you've got a robot fairy-tale crossover book with a steampunk twist, and right now robot fairy-tale crossovers with steampunk twists are all the rage, you might do better to self-publish and ride the wave than to wait two years to be commercially published when the trend has already passed (and perhaps gone the way of sparkly vampires into the realm of "Omg I never want to see another one of those" for a lot of people).

It got me thinking, though, do you think this might also move trends to die faster? It seems like these days trends in a lot of areas climb high and fall fast. Popular Facebook games, viral videos, and so on, get passed around and are huge for a few weeks and then become old news. Book trends seem to, according to my uneducated observations, last a few years. Heck, if a series is driving it, it might last several.

But if authors are able to get books out there faster to catch the wave at the beginning, is it possible that the trends will also burn out faster? I'm wondering if we're moving toward a world where that robot fairy-tale might be hugely popular, spawn dozens of look-alikes, and then two or three months later everyone is like, "Robot fairy-tales? That's so last December. Now we're all about robot zombie horror novels!"

Do you think this is actually a possibility, and if so, do you think it benefits writers (and readers) or is a negative? What sort of effect do you think it might have on career building, if any?

Cyia · Mar 1, 2012

I think we've still got two distinct audiences. There are those who know about the self-published e-books and those who don't. Even for someone with meteoric success like Amanda Hocking, there weren't many outside writer's circles and those also self-publishing who had heard of her before her print deal and the publicity that came with it.

So while a trend might play out online faster, that doesn't mean it'll play out in print or with mainstream readers faster.

Amos Gunner · Mar 1, 2012

To my mind, trends are meant to come and go. If the process has been speeded up in recent times, so be it. If there was any substance to the trend, it would cease to be a trend and would move on to occupy firmer territory in our culture. If not, goodbye old trend and hello new one. Apples and apples.

Hey, if someone wants to use whatever talents and abilities they have to make some quick cash, I say go for it. But if one should decide to go this route, I think, "Go for it quickly," is good advice. I can see how an energetic, tuned-in writer could build a career based on books no one will care about six months later. To me, this seems exhausting, but that's just me.

Drachen Jager · Mar 1, 2012

I think your comparison doesn't make much sense.

Jeremy Lin biographies are non-fiction.

Steampunk robot fairies are fiction (unless you've been doing the right kind of drugs).

Trends in non-fiction follow real-world events. People are interested in Iraq and the Iraq war so long as it's ongoing and in the news. Now that it's over, I'm sure interest has waned. People will be interested in Lin so long as he's on top of his game, but should he fall and become a flash in the pan, so goes the interest in him.

Trends in fiction are not so clear cut. There was an uptick in the number of sales of books about magical boys in the years after Harry Potter was released, but nothing like the before/after change seen in non-fiction trends. Same goes for vampires, and I'm sure it will soon apply to dystopian futures where teenagers vie to survive.

I don't think the difference in sales made by 'riding the wave' will make up the difference between self-publishing vs traditional publishing.

Your best bet is to create your own wave, and become richer than the Queen.

Jamesaritchie · Mar 1, 2012

I don't really believe in following trends. No matter how fast you are, you're still late, and still just following a trend. The idea is to start a trend, not follow it.

And you really can't do much with something like Jeremy Lin. It's possible to write an unauthorized biography, but to do it right takes a lot of time, a lot of insider knowledge, and probably won't get you anywhere unless you can dig up material no one else has found.

kaitie · Mar 1, 2012

Drachen Jager said:
I think your comparison doesn't make much sense.

Jeremy Lin biographies are non-fiction.

Steampunk robot fairies are fiction (unless you've been doing the right kind of drugs).

Trends in non-fiction follow real-world events. People are interested in Iraq and the Iraq war so long as it's ongoing and in the news. Now that it's over, I'm sure interest has waned. People will be interested in Lin so long as he's on top of his game, but should he fall and become a flash in the pan, so goes the interest in him.

Trends in fiction are not so clear cut. There was an uptick in the number of sales of books about magical boys in the years after Harry Potter was released, but nothing like the before/after change seen in non-fiction trends. Same goes for vampires, and I'm sure it will soon apply to dystopian futures where teenagers vie to survive.

I don't think the difference in sales made by 'riding the wave' will make up the difference between self-publishing vs traditional publishing.

Your best bet is to create your own wave, and become richer than the Queen.

Of course your right and the nonfiction sector would be very different from fiction. At the same time, I think the trend thing works in both genres.

Take vampires, for example. When Twilight became really popular, you saw an upswing in people wanting to read vampire books, vampire books being sold to publishers, publishers asking for vampire books (or paranormal romance in general).

After a year or two, the tone suddenly changed. People were burned out by vampires and didn't even want to hear them mentioned. Readers were like "Oh goodness, no more vampires." Agents were saying, "Please stop sending vampires I've seen so many vampire stories I'm sick of them!"

People who had written vampire stories at the beginning of that upswing would have had an increased chance of selling, but now if you have a vampire novel, it's going to be harder to sell.

The same thing is happening now with dystopian, which is huge and you see them everywhere, but I've seen a couple of people mention recently that they're tired of them and want to see something else. I doubt it's quite over the hump yet, but it will be.

I'm not really suggesting people should attempt to write to a trend, I'm just wondering how the ability for people to self-publish books about a trend topic will speed up the decline of said topic. If Twilight was huge and a hundred people self-published books right after it took off, would vampires have lasted as long as they did?

As for different types of readers, I do agree that there is a difference and some people buy self-published and some don't. However, if you're searching for "vampires" in Amazon, wouldn't the self-published books potentially pop up at the same time as the others? Might they also end up on "also bought" lists?

kaitie · Mar 1, 2012

Jamesaritchie said:
I don't really believe in following trends. No matter how fast you are, you're still late, and still just following a trend. The idea is to start a trend, not follow it.

And you really can't do much with something like Jeremy Lin. It's possible to write an unauthorized biography, but to do it right takes a lot of time, a lot of insider knowledge, and probably won't get you anywhere unless you can dig up material no one else has found.

I actually agree, to some degree. I don't think it's a good idea to say, "Wow, dystopian YA is huge right now so that's what I'm going to write." I will admit to having written a superhero novel in part because I suspected that it might start trending soon and hoped that I could catch it if it did. I also didn't want to miss the boat it if did. That being said, I wrote the idea because I love it and the characters and it made me laugh and I'd had it long before I suspected it would potentially trend.

I'm just thinking more along the lines of authors who are already working on products that might fall into the line of a trend. It seems like there's something of a collective unconscious among authors where a lot of people start writing similar topics at the same time.

I guess the reason I foresee potential negatives here is that missing a trend can really screw you over. If you've written a dystopian after dystopians are finished and sales of them have dropped and nobody wants them anymore, then the timing issue is going to make your book hard to sell. Right now you might have a decently long period of time before the trend dissipates, but if the rate of trending speeds up, it could mean more authors are stuck missing the trends.

I might not make any sense here at all lol.

Jamesaritchie · Mar 1, 2012

kaitie said:
I actually agree, to some degree. I don't think it's a good idea to say, "Wow, dystopian YA is huge right now so that's what I'm going to write." I will admit to having written a superhero novel in part because I suspected that it might start trending soon and hoped that I could catch it if it did. I also didn't want to miss the boat it if did. That being said, I wrote the idea because I love it and the characters and it made me laugh and I'd had it long before I suspected it would potentially trend.

I'm just thinking more along the lines of authors who are already working on products that might fall into the line of a trend. It seems like there's something of a collective unconscious among authors where a lot of people start writing similar topics at the same time.

I guess the reason I foresee potential negatives here is that missing a trend can really screw you over. If you've written a dystopian after dystopians are finished and sales of them have dropped and nobody wants them anymore, then the timing issue is going to make your book hard to sell. Right now you might have a decently long period of time before the trend dissipates, but if the rate of trending speeds up, it could mean more authors are stuck missing the trends.

I might not make any sense here at all lol.

I think we're pretty much in agreement. I think writing what you love is always a good idea. Even if it comes after a trend goes cold, if it's good enough, it can start the trend all over again. I also think it's far more likely to be good enough if you've written it because it's what you most wanted to write, trend or no trend.

But it's a bad idea to jump on a trend just because it is a trend. No matter how fast you get there, you're still not going to be anywhere near first, and while you may get published, odds are you'll have poor sales. Books that follow trends usually do not do well, even if they manage to sell, which most do not.

Write the book you really want to write, write it well enough, and you'll start a trend. Isn't this how all trends start, with one book by one writer that catches on and sells a bazillion copies?

Charlie Horse · Mar 2, 2012

A quote from an interview with agent Marisa Corvisiero that I found appropriate to this discussion.

Although some still believe that self publishing is a negative or a deterrent to becoming a successful author, I will say that the trend has changed a lot in the past few years, and it continues to change. In the past, vanity press was frowned upon. Now, with so many resources and the ease of self publishing in contrast with the time delays and decreased acquisitions by traditional publishers, many more authors have turned to self publishing. Being self published no longer means that the book is just not good enough or that the author is difficult to work with. It may just mean that the author is willing to spend time and money to sell their book and that they are eager to create a following. So the old perceptions are shifting into a more neutral and acceptable plane. I have recently sent out questions to some contacts at NYC top ten traditional houses and all ten told me that if they love the work and the book has been doing well, they will try to acquire it. The magic number for “doing well” is about 5K book sales! That is not an impossible number to achieve today with all of the social marketing and e-book opportunities that cost almost nothing! I always say, “the work speaks for itself”… when the editors love the book, they will usually not turn it down.

Thoughts from a Literary Agent

Jess Haines · Mar 2, 2012

kaitie said:
Of course your right and the nonfiction sector would be very different from fiction. At the same time, I think the trend thing works in both genres.

Take vampires, for example. When Twilight became really popular, you saw an upswing in people wanting to read vampire books, vampire books being sold to publishers, publishers asking for vampire books (or paranormal romance in general).

After a year or two, the tone suddenly changed. People were burned out by vampires and didn't even want to hear them mentioned. Readers were like "Oh goodness, no more vampires." Agents were saying, "Please stop sending vampires I've seen so many vampire stories I'm sick of them!"

People who had written vampire stories at the beginning of that upswing would have had an increased chance of selling, but now if you have a vampire novel, it's going to be harder to sell.

The same thing is happening now with dystopian, which is huge and you see them everywhere, but I've seen a couple of people mention recently that they're tired of them and want to see something else. I doubt it's quite over the hump yet, but it will be.

I'm not really suggesting people should attempt to write to a trend, I'm just wondering how the ability for people to self-publish books about a trend topic will speed up the decline of said topic. If Twilight was huge and a hundred people self-published books right after it took off, would vampires have lasted as long as they did?

As for different types of readers, I do agree that there is a difference and some people buy self-published and some don't. However, if you're searching for "vampires" in Amazon, wouldn't the self-published books potentially pop up at the same time as the others? Might they also end up on "also bought" lists?

Agh, I wanted to reply to this yesterday, but the firewall came on RIGHT as I clicked to post. Anyway, had to retype my thoughts, but this is basically what I wanted to say:

I'd like to respectfully disagree with you here.

Twilight only brought vampires to the forefront. Agents and editors who handle this genre were not and are not sick of vampire novels. They are sick of seeing the same vampire novels over... and over... and over again.

Twilight was vampires with a new twist. I think the Oatmeal did a great job of describing why it was so insanely popular (http://theoatmeal.com/story/twilight). Note that this book is not what made vampires popular. They were already a "thing" long before Twlight came around (Interview with the Vampire, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Anita Blake, etc). Perhaps not to the same degree, but I'll agree that it did spawn a greater number of vampire-themed shows and movies and books that then flooded the market.

When a market is flooded, the agents and editors may be saying "for the love of God, please, no more ______!" It's because the stories they are seeing are the same plots and the same recycled characters over and over. After vampires, the same thing happened with zombies. Then with angels. Now it's dystopian novels.

It's not that people aren't still buying these books, or books with these elements. It's that they get tired of seeing the same story repeatedly with no new twist--and I don't mean twists like making your vampire sparkle in the sun.

Take a look at Karen Marie Moning's Fever series. It's going to become a movie soon. Guess what? It's mainly about fae and set in a world that becomes a dystopian--oh, and one of the bad guys is also a vampire. Who later turns into a zombie. Sort of.
Yet, if you read it, her writing and take on the urban fantasy genre is so unique and shines so brightly, who freakin' cares of it has a vampire in it?

Point is, it doesn't matter if you write for a trend or include something tired and overdone or what-the-f**k-ever. Just make something about your stuff unique. Put some fire in your prose. Give it something that makes it stand out from the crowd.

Eddyz Aquila · Mar 2, 2012

Start a trend, don't go with an existing one, that's how I see it.

Become a Jeremy Lin of the book industry and you're set

kaitie · Mar 3, 2012

Jess Haines said:
Agh, I wanted to reply to this yesterday, but the firewall came on RIGHT as I clicked to post. Anyway, had to retype my thoughts, but this is basically what I wanted to say:

I'd like to respectfully disagree with you here.

Twilight only brought vampires to the forefront. Agents and editors who handle this genre were not and are not sick of vampire novels. They are sick of seeing the same vampire novels over... and over... and over again.

Twilight was vampires with a new twist. I think the Oatmeal did a great job of describing why it was so insanely popular (http://theoatmeal.com/story/twilight). Note that this book is not what made vampires popular. They were already a "thing" long before Twlight came around (Interview with the Vampire, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Anita Blake, etc). Perhaps not to the same degree, but I'll agree that it did spawn a greater number of vampire-themed shows and movies and books that then flooded the market.

When a market is flooded, the agents and editors may be saying "for the love of God, please, no more ______!" It's because the stories they are seeing are the same plots and the same recycled characters over and over. After vampires, the same thing happened with zombies. Then with angels. Now it's dystopian novels.

It's not that people aren't still buying these books, or books with these elements. It's that they get tired of seeing the same story repeatedly with no new twist--and I don't mean twists like making your vampire sparkle in the sun.

Take a look at Karen Marie Moning's Fever series. It's going to become a movie soon. Guess what? It's mainly about fae and set in a world that becomes a dystopian--oh, and one of the bad guys is also a vampire. Who later turns into a zombie. Sort of.
Yet, if you read it, her writing and take on the urban fantasy genre is so unique and shines so brightly, who freakin' cares of it has a vampire in it?

Point is, it doesn't matter if you write for a trend or include something tired and overdone or what-the-f**k-ever. Just make something about your stuff unique. Put some fire in your prose. Give it something that makes it stand out from the crowd.

I definitely think you're right. I wonder sometimes if the derivative books are intentionally so, or the mark of young writers who don't know how to craft their own story yet (Goodness knows I've had a couple).

I also think part of the challenge is coming up with a unique take on a subject when there is so much competition. But that's really always the case, isn't it?

Self-publishing and trends

kaitie

With great power comes

Cyia

Rewriting My Destiny

Amos Gunner

figuring it all out

Drachen Jager

Professor of applied misanthropy

Jamesaritchie

kaitie

With great power comes

kaitie

With great power comes

Jamesaritchie

Charlie Horse

Speaking in metaphors

Jess Haines

Boldly going nowhere in particular.

Eddyz Aquila

Noob Writers United

kaitie

With great power comes