Writing For The Market

When authors begin creating stories, they ponder if they should write the kinds of books they enjoy reading or write the kind of books that appear to be selling. The problem is the market is fickle. Fads in books change often. Chick lit so popular a couple years ago is difficult to sell now. Fantasy and paranormal were written only be a few with a small audience and now stories The Hunger Games, Twilight and Harry Potter has opened doors for hundreds of new novels to land on the bookstore shelves.

But here's the problem with writing for the market. It takes books over a year to be published by traditional publishers so they make it to bookstores across the country and even beyond. Concentrating on the market is not always the wisest choice. Some of the best advice says to write what you read, what you love.

Agent Steve Laube tackled the question in a blog post recently as he addressed another problem of writing for the market. Steve says: Here is when writing for the market is bad advice: When you’re made to feel you have to write a certain type of book just to break into the market, any market.

If you think, for instance, that any lame brain can write a romance novel, but hey, romance authors are millionaires, then the romance novel market is not where you need to be. You won’t respect your readers or give them your best.

So if writing to market means you’re slogging away writing a book you loathe in hopes of entertaining riches, then you’ve taken bad advice.

Then when is writing to market a good idea? It’s a good---even great---idea when you are:

• writing your best work, giving your readers your all.
• creating a timeless story.
• staying within your targeted publisher’s word count, as shown in the publisher’s guidelines or advised by your agent.
• choosing a setting to which your intended audience can relate.
• selecting a time period you are passionate about and can make come alive for your readers.

Stop by Steve Laube's Blog http://stevelaube.com/blog  each day to see what new topic he's shared with authors and readers.