Bandwagon jumpers...

Well, I definitely feel strongly about Eragon and its lack of quality. In fact, it's one of the worst things I've ever had the misfortune to attempt. I say attempt, because I really could not get through much of it.

But I suppose books, like anything and everything else, are driven by business considerations, which means marketing, which means, ultimately, that merit (which cannot be objectively determined, anyway) is quite secondary to marketing strategies.

You get this with novels for adults as well (whenever I say adult books, it makes me think of porn). There are so many DVC rip-offs coming out now, and ever since Gladiator was released, there's been a glut of Roman sagas coming out - of course Colleen McCullough was there LONG before, but look at Conn Iggulden, among others. You could say, well that's the genre, similar books will come out from time to time, but I never noticed this many 'Roman' books on the market before Gladiator. There are now shedloads of Troy books on the market too. It happens with crime as well. Many lead characters are interchangeable. Personally I think it's laziness on the part of the writers, not coming up with something more original. (Oh, and note to Lily Prior - you are NOT Joanne Harris, mmmkay)?

negesydd said:

Well, I definitely feel strongly about Eragon and its lack of quality. In fact, it's one of the worst things I've ever had the misfortune to attempt. I say attempt, because I really could not get through much of it.

But I suppose books, like anything and everything else, are driven by business considerations, which means marketing, which means, ultimately, that merit (which cannot be objectively determined, anyway) is quite secondary to marketing strategies.

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I'm one of those who believes Eragon succeeded because it was confused with LOTR. I can't tell you how many readers I've chatted with who bought it thinking they were getting some sort of sequel. It certainly is a poorly written book.

The question is, how will his next two or three books do. A first book often receives huge sales because of reader confusion, or sometimes because of proper marketing, but when this happens the next book or two had better be very good, or readers go away as fast as they came.

And sadly, not all of us have parents 'in the business' or who are willing to pay for self-publishing...

genre

rickmaniac said:

Might encounter hostility with this but does anyone else get really irritated by stories of writers of adult lit suddenly switching to kids lit and making loads of £££ (or $$$!)? I appreciate that writers need to make money, but all it is doing is saturating the market. Some people will say this is a good thing, but I just can't agree. Same goes with all the celebrities turning to writing YA because they think it's easy- I actually think it's v disrespectful to people who genuinely want to write YA and nothing else.

Not to mention the spate of YA written 'by teenagers, for teenagers'... about half a dozen I can think of. A PR man's wet dream (sorry, that was a bit crude, but you know what I mean). If they'd been written by a 50 year old man, would they have sold? I think not. I thought I was a great writer at 16- I really wasn't. I thought I was a great writer 2 years ago- I really wasn't. It's taken me this long to think I can write material of publishable quality, and I'm sorry, but no 16 yr old writes material of the right standard... no, not even the writer of Eragon.

When I start trying to shop my MS around, I am thinking of saying that I am 12 yrs old. Better yet, I might sign off as Dakota Fanning, and see where that gets me.

Let the battle commence?!

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Actually, there have been some very, very good writers as young as thirteen. It's rare, but some very young writers do have the necessary talent and skill to write very well. Never assume that because you can't do something at a certain age, no one else can.

As for saturating the market, no, not really. What saturates the market is publishers buying bad books to fill slots in a hot genre. Really good books never saturate the market because there simply aren't enough really good books to do so.

As for jumping on the bandwagon, just because you want to write YA and nothing else doesn't mean you get the field all to yourself. Many writers want to write in several genres, and any of us are allowed to write whatever we want. If your book is better, it will get published. If it isn't better, it should get beat out, no matter who the writer is that beats it.

And, of course, "easy" depends on the writer. For some, writing anything well enough to sell it is impossible. For others it's merely difficult. For a few it is easy.

Originality in voice and story are really the keys. Trouble is, writing well, while being original in these things is something very, very few of us can manage. If you can manage it, you have no worries, no matter who or how many are writing in the same genre. If you can't manage it, at best you'll be selling clones that go nowhere, regardless of how few are writing in the genre.

Christopher Paolini (or however you spell that) is a hack. JMPO.

That said, I've read pieces by fifteen-year olds that would put Joyce Carol Oates to shame (too bad a couple of them were derivatives).

I wrote half of a fantasy novel at age twelve. I think it's crap, but I gave it to a bunch of other people to critique and several of them *liked* it. Go figure. I'm a hell of a lot better at writing now than I was even a year ago, but that certainly doesn't mean I couldn't write decently as a teenager.

I'm a bit peeved at the crap HP has spawned, but that's to be expected. Like others, I also don't write in a any single genre. People write what comes into their heads, period.

Don't be put off by the competition.