Writing "for the Market"?

I don't really know. I tend to think like you, but my agent seems more inclined to think like your husband

The truth lies somewhere in between.

Marketability and literary merits/personal preferences are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Others are discussing this on a similar thread elsewhere on the board but I can't find it for you...

Donnettetxgirl said:

I, however can't & won't. I want to write what I have a passion for. I think that writing, although challenging, should also be fun. I can't even imagine writing about something that I don't enjoy.

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And why do you think what you enjoy and what is fun for you is not marketable?

While it's a useful concept, predicting publishing patterns is very much like playing the commodities market. You're guessing, based on what's on the shelf. But those were bought from 18-24 months ago, so it's like predicting LAST YEAR'S orange crop. Pretty easy. But next year's? Not so much.

There are plenty of traders out there who are probably ruined because they have contracts for $85/barrel oil for delivery next month. They'll have to make up the difference between $85 and $145.

Publishing's like that, in a smaller sense. If ANY publisher could predict next year's buying trends, every book would be a bestseller. But they can't. So writing TO the market just doesn't work, because there's no way to predict reader wants, any more than you can predict next winter's snow pack.

Explaining it that way might make sense to him.

Cathy C said:

Publishing's like that, in a smaller sense. If ANY publisher could predict next year's buying trends, every book would be a bestseller. But they can't. So writing TO the market just doesn't work, because there's no way to predict reader wants, any more than you can predict next winter's snow pack.

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Cathy said it best. But basically, if you just write based on what's selling now, you really are behind the trend.

Write what you love and write it well enough and you will create your own trends. You want to be the first of your kind, not "the next Dan Brown/JK Rowling/Stephen King." And really, if you look at the breakout authors and bestsellers, they have very little in common from year to year. Usually what makes it big is something that hasn't been done well recently.

I don't think that looking at current markets and deciding what to write based on that is a good idea. Trends can change so quickly. Say it takes 1.5-2 years to get a book on the shelf once you have a polished manuscript. A lot can happen in that time period.

Writing that appeals to you is the best bet. If you're interested and you care about your project, it will definitely show in the finished product.

maestrowork said:

The truth lies somewhere in between.

Marketability and literary merits/personal preferences are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

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I agree with Ray... somewhere in the middle.

But I will say that personally--having no real burning aspirations to actually get published and make money from my novel writing--I write to my own whims. If it happens to stick somewhere, oh well.

ChristaCarol13 said:

He says a writer with good business whateverness would look at the market

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I think "the market" is an awfully vague term. The market is huge. There's a market for anything. It may be a very small market, like say... you... but it's still a market.

There's also the problem that the market moves. By the time you write the book that will do best next, and write it, and get it accepted, and published, and... and... and... well, by then it's not the same market anymore.

If you can productively write a book on any subject in the span of a month, and you can get it accepted based on partials and treatments during that time, you'd be able to make good money at this by doing it consistently. But I think that's only useful to a tiny minority of writers.

I'm a big believer that you write what you're good at and if it's good enough it will (hopefully) sell.

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I think your husband does have a good strategy in certain senses. It would be a good business strategy to write many books in areas that traditionally do well, and where you traditionally do well in writing them, and then to submit the one you think is most likely to be accepted and published under current market conditions.

But no, I don't agree that you should concentrate on writing what looks like it will sell. I think you should concentrate on buying what looks like it will sell, which means your husband's strategy is the Right Thing for a publisher, and thus that employing a strategy of considering the market before you submit one of several books would be a Good Idea for the writer.

I enjoy the challenge of writing something I think a lot of people are going to like reading. However, as a general rule, if you like it, so will someone else.

Cathy C said:

While it's a useful concept, predicting publishing patterns is very much like playing the commodities market. If ANY publisher could predict next year's buying trends, every book would be a bestseller. But they can't. So writing TO the market just doesn't work, because there's no way to predict reader wants, any more than you can predict next winter's snow pack.

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Exactly.

I'm with those who are in the middle. I never write anything I don't love, but of all the ideas I have and love (and there are literally probably a dozen in the mental queue right now), my first priority goes to the ones in that group I think stand a good chance of getting published.

The best advice I ever received about writing was not to think about and write about what's currently in vogue. Why? Because by the time you finish you book the "vogue" more than lkely won't exist.

Think ahead -- what do you believe (based on some research or just gut feeling) will be in vogue one year from today? That's what you should write about.

dreamsofnever said:

And really, if you look at the breakout authors and bestsellers, they have very little in common from year to year. Usually what makes it big is something that hasn't been done well recently.

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It's true. The only reason the whole vampire craze happened is because Stephanie Meyer wrote this amazing series ( so I'm told) and started a trend. People craved more vampire stuff, so people wrote more vampire stuff.

You have to be a trendsetter. There is a thing about writing for the market, but I think basically it's not writing what's hot now, but AVOIDING what's hot now. or something like that.

-Feathers

scope said:

Think ahead -- what do you believe (based on some research or just gut feeling) will be in vogue one year from today? That's what you should write about.

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Ha ha! If only we could predict this!

I tend to have a market and their needs and niche in mind generally speaking, but don't write on hot topic of the month. I agree with many of the replies in that I look for the overlap between what I enjoy writing and what I perceive to be marketable.

Donnettetxgirl said:

Didn't say that what I enjoy writing isn't marketable. It is marketable.

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Everything is marketable, given a marketer of infinite skill. The puzzle is to write something marketable enough that your marketer can market it. If you're with a big publishing house, this is easy. Smaller ones - or nobody at all - make things a bit harder on the writer.

But the marketing of your book shouldn't have to be your job. If it is, you're with the wrong publisher... unless you want to market it.

Write what you are dying to write. Write what you, as a reader, would love to read. Write the kind of story that keeps you up all night. Write the kind of story that makes you get up at 4:30 in the morning because you are itching to get to the next scene. Worry about your craft now. Worry about the market later.

I suppose some writers can do that but I'm not one of them. My husband figured I could just whip off a Harlequin to make some fast money while I write my 'real' novel on the side. First of all I'm not a romance writer and it would be crap. Secondly, my creativity is only engaged when I feel strongly about a storyline. I can't write to order and I'd never want to do so. That's probably why a series has never appealed to me. I can't imagine having an agent or anyone decide how I should create a storyline and they do seem to get their noses in an author's business as some of the members on this forum have found out. For me anyway, writing is personal and not a team effort. Once the manuscript is completed I welcome an editor's input and direction, no problem. But I don't want anyone else being part of the creative process. Selfish little so-and-so aren't I.
Linnea

Brutal Mustang said:

Ha ha! If only we could predict this!

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There are indicators! Keep your antenna up and your eyes and ears wide open. Think ahead.

ChristaCarol13 said:

He says a writer with good business whateverness would look at the market to see what books are doing good and what aren't and try to do some business type of strategy on what kind of book would do best next, and write it.

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I've never read anything by any writer who agrees with your husband. Check that -- if you're writing non-fiction, it makes perfect sense.

If you write novels, however, opinion appears unanimous that "that way lies madness" -- it won't work, you'll fall flat on your face, get nothing for your efforts, and feel like a cheap whore for your trouble.

"The market" wasn't crying out for gangster novels when Mario Puzo wrote The Godfather. There was no established market for Catholic Church conspiracies when DaVinci Code was published. And so on.

What the market "wants" is usually established after the fact -- that is, something new comes out, it hits big, and everyone concludes it's what the market wants.

Bullshit. Here's what the market wants:

1. a good story, well-told.
2. characters the readers can relate to, and hopefully one or two they'll root for.
3. lots of tension, suspense, and a good payoff.

"Someone gets in trouble, then gets out of it. People love that story, they never get tired of it." -- Kurt Vonnegut (who wasted his time writing novels that were unlike anything else on the market).

ishtar'sgate said:

My husband figured I could just whip off a Harlequin to make some fast money

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Sorry . . . um <snort> but I hope your hubby was joking and doesn't actually BELIEVE this. Harlequin has some of the highest standards in the biz. You don't "whip off" anything to H/S (Harlequin/Silhouette.) You're competing with thousands other writers who also believe they can, every single month. THEN you're competing with all the existing H/S authors---who can't even guarantee that the publisher will pick up their next book. Don't presume that even the great Nora Roberts hasn't had her share of rejections from H/S. Despite how many books come out every month, there really aren't all that many slots available for new authors.

It's really a shame that H/S has such a bad rap for putting out "dreck" (a term I hear over and over on various reader boards/forums.) But readers LIKE their books. They buy millions of them every month. And anything the readers LIKE isn't dreck.

Please . . . tell your husband that it won't do any good to try to "whip off" something to submit to H/S. It won't sell there any faster than Avon or Berkely or Dell or Dorchester. It's just a myth.

We should all just whip off Dan Brown and become multimillion best-sellers. That's it. (Actually, I'm sure a LOT of people are doing just that right now)

wayndom said:

Here's what the market wants:

1. a good story, well-told.
2. characters the readers can relate to, and hopefully one or two they'll root for.
3. lots of tension, suspense, and a good payoff.

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Bravo! Bravo!