Do You Write To The Market?

Do you write for the market? Or do you strictly write for your own pleasure? Or do you fall somewhere in the middle? Me? I’m somewhere in the middle. I go back and forth. I’ll indulge myself and then I’ll remember that Christmas is coming and I have five children, two grandchildren, and one daughter-in-law – oh! – and the hubby, to buy presents for, and then I’ll write something I’m pretty sure will sell well. Of course, my wish is that all my books would sell so well they’d be on the New York Times bestseller list. While I want to be able to pay my bills and have a little extra, I really write in the hopes that my stories will bring a smile to someone’s face, to give them some escape and relaxation and perhaps a spot of fun after a hard day with the kids or at the office. God knows, it’s been hard at my office lately and I’d like to get as far away from that world as I can. Am I prostituting myself if I write to the market? Especially if it’s something I thought I’d never ever write? Something I never dreamed I’d ever do? Something I won’t admit to my church? Lately, I’ve been writing MMF and now MM. My first MMF was a fluke. How? I didn’t know at the time I signed up for it that it meant that the two men had a romantic and sexual relationship with each other and that their relationship with the woman came later. Naïve me thought it meant that the lucky woman got two men all to herself, worshipping her. When my editor explained it to me, I’m sure I did a double take, but I went for it. And it was my biggest seller, even bigger than “American Beauty” and “Purrfect Justice” which are also great sellers out of my books. So I wanted to repeat the process and I wrote another MMF. The first publisher I submitted it to rejected it, but I reworked it and resubmitted to TEB and it’s been one of my bestsellers there. That’s “The Perfect Gift”. I’m a pretty analytical person. I guess it’s the accountant in me – what bit is left. (My BSBA is in Accounting and once upon a time I worked as a cost analyst.) So I started watching the bestseller list at TEB and almost always the bestsellers are MMs and MMFs. Very interesting… And then the TEB authors got the call to submit short stories for Scarlet Magazine and I submitted four. Only one was an M/M. Guess what? The M/M was the one Scarlet selected (out of mine) for publication. The plot thickens… Meanwhile, the M/Ms and MMFs were still dominating TEB’s bestseller list. I mentioned it to my daughter and she said that M/M is extremely hot on fan fiction and with her teenage friends. She wasn’t shocked at all that I had written one. So then I wrote “Liquid Heat” for TEB’s summer Heatwave series. And then I decided it was Christmas in July so I wrote two Christmas stories, one of them M/M. I was kicking around the idea of a M/M series and decided the M/M Christmas story (just contracted – yeah!) will be the first in a series and so I’m writing the next in line. I’ve not totally gone over to M/M and MMF. My August release with TEB is M/F. So is my January TEB release and my story coming soon from Ellora’s Cave. What about you, if you’re a writer?

The image on the left is not a cell phone (or mobile phone, as my editor just informed me they are called in England). It's a device called a "cell phone jammer" (or "mobile phone jammer").

I first heard about these things on the local TV news a couple nights ago. And not in a good way.

These things are scary. Seriously.

Can you imagine criminals using them to block intended victims from calling for help? Kidnappers could jam calls so that people they target can't call the police.

That's the scariest.

But people at will can stop the conversation you're having, that you've already paid for.

Granted, I think some people are downright rude when they talk on their phones in public. They talk about private, weird things you don't want to hear. They blow you off by talking to other people on the phone when they're supposedly spending time with you. Sometimes they're even so loud, you can't hear yourself think. And sometimes they hold up the lines at Subway and the grocery store because they're having their private conversation in public. Then there are the people who sneak conversations all day at work (and obviously shirk work) or they go in the bathroom and air their dirty laundry to all in there (this is the discussion of one of my earlier posts a couple months ago. ewe...) And what about those users that have the phone glued to their ear while they drive and weave all over the road?

Oi!

Still, jammers aren't the answer.

From what little bit I read, they're illegal in some places but not in others.

Should these get in the hands of Joe Blow Public, would it even be worthwhile to pay for mobile phone service? Would service be blocked so often, in so many places, that we'd be wasting our money?

If you want to hear my interview with fellow author and blog radio host Yolanda Renee, click on this:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/YolandaRenee/2008/07/25/Ashley-Ladd-Romance-Writer

Or if you just want to hear my voice...

Renee did a great job of hosting the show and I'll return the favor very soon and have her as a guest blogger here. She's a very nice lady.

What do you think of the interview?