The general advice out there is “don’t write to market”. \u00a0And when I say that, your response is, “what the heck are you talking about?”<\/p>\n
I’m ahead of myself here.<\/p>\n
All right, so, imagine if you will all of a sudden this book comes out where an attractive teenager starts a torrid romance with, I don’t know, a were-dolphin. \u00a0That’s a thing, right? \u00a0And it goes huge. The kids are going crazy, getting tattoos and going to conventions with flippers and they’re talking movies and everyone has\u00a0Blowhole<\/em><\/strong> fever.<\/p>\n And suddenly were-dolphins are a THING. \u00a0Other publishers are putting out their were-dolphin books, and someone else is trying were-shark thing, because that’s what that third-leg of the love triangle was. \u00a0Agents are all, “WHO HAS WERE-DOLPHIN BOOKS QUERY ME NOW!”<\/p>\n So you say to yourself, “I should write a were-dolphin book because that is HUGE and it’ll be bought up and sell like gangbusters”.<\/p>\n Except no, that’s a terrible idea.<\/p>\n Even presuming you can crank out a were-dolphin book in a month*, and get it out to agents like BAM… it probably wouldn’t matter. \u00a0Because the publishing industry is really not geared to respond to trends. \u00a0“Glaciers honk at the publishing industry to move faster”. \u00a0 A super fast-tracked novel from writing-to-agent-to-publisher-to-bookstore would still take a year. \u00a0By which time everyone is bored to tears with weredolphins and have moved on to sexy steampunk airship captains. \u00a0Do you have a sexy steampunk airship captain? \u00a0No? \u00a0Then no one is buying your lame weredolphin latecomer.<\/p>\n Do not write to the trends of the market.<\/p>\n I honestly think the best “what should I write” advice is this: write the books you want to read. \u00a0Write to the market of the book you want to buy. \u00a0And count on the fact that you have\u00a0fantastic\u00a0<\/em>taste that everyone else will want to read it as well.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n