I just read an interesting article on Dear Author: For Whom Should The Author Write.
Years ago one of my publishers sent a long note to her authors telling us that we need to think about our market. We need to look at trends and if writing romance, especially erotic romance, to make sure we have a sexy premise.
I took that to heart and studied the trends. Then vampire romance was big. She also wanted me to try my hand at writing African-American romance even though I'm not African-American.
I tried to do both.
Although I often read African-American this was my first venture writing it. I read even more in the genre and tried to get the characters right. I still got a big complaint from a reader about this book.
I didn't get any complaints about my vampire romances. However, my sells weren't as high as I'd been led to believe they'd be. They were much lower than sells for my contemporary comedy romances.
Do I do that anymore?
Now I try to do a mixture like most of the commenters on the Dear Author blog.
I started writing MMF and MM romance which is writing for the market. I still write a vampire romance here and there. But I make the story interesting to me.
It only makes sense (to me anyway) but if the author isn't passionate about the story it will show. It will be lacklustre, boring.
What do you do? How do you feel about this?
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Sunday, November 08, 2009
For Whom Should The Author Write
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7 comments:
For me, I have to write a story I want to read or am passionate about. I was curious about MM and enjoyed the books, so I've ventured into that arena. But, for now anyway, I stick to what I love - contemporary and MFM.
Yup...I write the book I want to read. Otherwise, I don't think I'd do as well.
Write what you know - isn't that what they always say? But I think venturing outside of a comfort zone can be an exciting challenge too - and if you never tried anything new, how would you know if you enjoy it or not? So I applaud your attempts outside of the box to fit the market. But if you find you don't care for a particular style or topic, I think the writing eventually would suffer because of it, as would your sales.
Basically, you are saying that you are secretly a vampire? LOL
I think that a good writer can write a novel about anything and it will be so-so, however, a great writer who writes with passion because he/she feels it, creates books that are legendary.
I feel writing for your readers or for the market is glorified ghost writing. Someone else is dictating what you are writing about, you just find the words to tell the story. Ghost writing is a good gig to get, but it doesn't feed my soul in the same way writing for myself does.
I've seen the notes about bending style and content to the market, and I know that readers can tell if the writer is just going through the motions.
The books that really touch the readers are the ones that are true to the author's vision, knowledge and heart. We have that freedom in epublishing more than we ever did in print.
Sounds like good advice to me. I mean, if you can't get into what you're writing, that will shine through to the reader and they won't get into it either.
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