This past weekend on Twitter I tossed around a phrase I heard about on a few blogs.
"Write for the Market".
I don't know about you, but writing for the market doesn't generally work. Or does it?
what if you were to take what I said about and use the following formula: Write one project for the market and one project for yourself.
Does that make a difference?
I have two thoughts. I haven't quite drank my pot of coffee yet, and I'm chocolate free for the morning, so my thoughts might be a bit scattered, but ....
This works if you are writing short stories or novellas for epublishers. But for novels? Writing about something your not passionate about, or something totally away from your genre just because it's hot - doesn't sound like a winning formula to me.
This also works if what is hot is something you enjoy writing about. If I'm a contemporary romance writer and the market is screaming for sci-fi, well ... no amount of chocolate is gonna help me then.
I'm curious. What do you think? Since this works mainly for novellas and short stories - do you use this formula? Write for the market and for yourself? You make money with your backlist, or so they say. If your backlist includes what's hot right now, then fantastic. If it doesn't - will it make a difference?
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5 comments:
Right now, I only write novels (novellas and short stories aren't big with teens--at least not yet), and I write what I'm interested in writing and reading. Who knows what the market wants? It's always changing. And there's no point writing to trends. Usually you're too late by the time it's a trend (with some exceptions).
I have to write what comes to me and worry about "the market" later. When you're not published, it's easy to do!
I'm totally with you; what if you don't like what the current market is selling? Trust me, people can tell when an author isn't passionate about the story they're telling. It shines through.
A short novella, sure, I could see that. You don't have to invest as much heart and soul and time into a quickie. But a full length novel? Let's just hope what you really want to write is what's hot at the moment.
Of course, by the time your finished, and you've submitted and finally sold the story and more time passes before it's published, the market will be all different. Sigh. What's the point?
My motto: Just write what you love!!!!
I'm writing for myself. I've really thought about writing for the market, but in the end I really have to be ME or I just won't be in to writing it. :-)
Writing a novel takes far too much time and sacrifice to spend it writing something you don't enjoy. At the end of the day, I have to write a story that, as a reader, I would want to read.
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