RTB Column: Writing to the Market

{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Kristie(J) 07.22.06 at 5:58 am

It is an interesting post. While in some ways I can see why authors write what’s “hot” at the moment, I wish they would stop. I doubt very much that so many authors have had a burning desire to write vampire novels. Now it’s easy to pick that one genre because I don’t particularly like them and therefore I’m tired of seeing so many, still if a whole heard of authors who previously didn’t, were to start writing Westerns for example, I think I would get just as annoyed. There just get to be too many after a while and they glut the market. I think this is one of the reasons why the Historical is going through troubled times these days. Just too many and they’ve been done to death. I think Mr Mayer has a good point in sticking to what you know and what you really want to write rather than writing what’s “hot” at the moment.

2 Avid Reader 07.22.06 at 10:11 am

Hi Kristie,

I LOVED what he said and like you mentioned, it explains why you see so many vampire and werewolves out there because currently that is what sells thanks to Feehan and Kenyon. Another thing is that is why you have so many bad books out there too, just writing what’s hot but nothing original about them. This also explains why so many of your skilled writers are suffocating in a “dead market” because there’s the perception of no audience for the book your writing that’s not hot which trickles down to little to no marketing.

I plan to get behind Anne Fraiser since her latest novel has a lower print run from before. She’s experimenting to see if word of mouth on blogs has any relationship to making books bestsellers. I can only guess that it must have some effect - Moon Called by Patricia Briggs was a bestseller for her and many of us spread the word on that book so…I would be curious to know how this works.

3 Kristie(J) 07.22.06 at 11:17 am

Yea - I saw that idea by Anne Frasier too. I thought it would be interesting. I hope I see something around the time she wants it done to remind me. I have one of her Anne Frasier books, but the others are so hard to find. And of course I love her Teresa Weir books! I think blogs are one of the reasons why JR Ward books took off so fast in popularity too. Word of mouth can be a good thing. And it at least gives the illusion that us readers have some say :)

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