Audience

Stop by a Borders or Barnes and Noble and see what is on the new fiction tables at th efront of the store.

Thats what there is an audience for right now. Whats hot can always change quickly though.

I guess it boils down to whether you write for a target audience. Right now, for example, there's a lot of cross-genre writing under the aegis of speculative ficton that is extremely popular---what's hot at the moment. Does that mean there's not a market for more traditional genre writing? I don't think so.

I agree that it's necessary any more (unless you're JK Rowling) to thoroughly research the market in your particular genre. Not finding an audience for a manuscript, however, might be nothing more than submitting it to the wrong publisher/agent.

I always write books that I would want to read.

This is the best advice:

johnzakour said:

I always write books that I would want to read.

Click to expand...

johnzakour said:

I always write books that I would want to read.

Click to expand...

Amen to that.

What's at the front of the bookstores was bought 18-24 months ago.

If it's hot, it's because the publishers might have bought that placement on the front shelf to help push the title.

Check around to see if anyone else has a book similar to your own and try with that house. Writing the author might get you the name of the agent.

When I sold my first title they didn't know what to do with it because it was a cross-genre thing. That was unheard of then, now those critters are all over the racks.

And remember -- that was just ONE voice.

I was disappointed when I got the "You're a good writer, but this is unpublishable" line from a prospective agent. (Huh-what???)

I decided he was an idiot and kept sending the book out. It found a home, and some years later he was prosecuted as a scammer.

Whew. Close call for me!

That's the trouble I run into with all my novels. It seems there isn't an appreciable group of people who have the same tastes as me and I can't write about anything that doesn't interest me. Ah well, back of the line for me.

Jedi Dad said:

Stop by a Borders or Barnes and Noble and see what is on the new fiction tables at th efront of the store.

Thats what there is an audience for right now. Whats hot can always change quickly though.

Click to expand...

Actually, publishers pay for books to be displayed on those front tables. And so, while those books may be selling really well, you shouldn't assume they're necessarily "what's hot" right now.

johnzakour said:

I always write books that I would want to read.

Click to expand...

ME TOO

popmuze said:

This goes without saying, since you have to read them about a million times before they're fit to print.

But the question is, will anyone else?

Click to expand...

I've sold a lot of books so yes. (And have contracts for books through 2009... So I keep selling books. So once again, yes.) After all we're the buying public too.

Heck, my last book was a SF, mystery, humor, holiday book and it found a market.

Not finding an audience for a manuscript, however, might be nothing more than submitting it to the wrong publisher/agent.

Click to expand...

This has to be the Quote of the day! My novel is a sort of romance that takes place in the aftermath of 9/11. Traditional romance sites did not want to touch it. It now has five houses reading it. One thing that might have influenced it: Don Dellilo's Falling Man had been hitting the front shelves. Perhaps there is a Da Vinci Code factor at play here.

I can explain the 9/11 no touch'ems.

Most of publishing is in NYC, and everyone there was effected by it.

I called one of my long-time editors that morning to see if she was okay. She's a hard-headed Irish gal, no nonsense, and tough as they come.

From her office window they were able to see the towers falling.

She and everyone else in the office were in tears.

You can bet that more than a few people in publishing had friends who were killed. That kind of grief doesn't go away. The scars are still in place and they still hurt.

I did a follow through on this, mentioning to my agent --in general terms!-- about hearing of a writer trying to sell a possible romance with 9/11 as part of the background.

She went silent, then made that "oh" sound that is indicative of an internal wince.

For her personal experience, she was out of touch with her husband and toddler that day for a solid 5 hours, which was how long it took for them to reach her. She dang near had a meltdown not knowing if they were all right.

One of my collaborators on a series--his oldest son and daughter-in-law were flying home when the order came for everything to get out of the sky. My friend also had a near-meltdown, not knowing what plane they were on, only that it was the same airline as the one that the passengers fought back. The sweetest voice he's ever heard was his kid phoning him from an airport in the middle of nowhere, shaken, but okay.

Just so you know why it's gonna be a hard-sell.

I bet if it's so well written and with such great characters, you'll do fine even if it doesn't have an obvious target audience.

popmuze said:

how do I avoid writing another book for which there's no audience

Click to expand...

The only way is to try and write commerical genre fiction, and even then there's no guarantee. It doesn't sound like that interests you. Therefore you can only write what you like to write. What other reason is there to write in a profession that guarantees nothing?

My characters tend to be mentally ill/homeless/marginalised, inhabiting plots localised to their circumstances. I expect to get told that my stories have no audience either. But I have no interest in writing anything else.