# Writing from your heart vs. writing to market



## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

J Ryan said:


> I wish I could sell like the rest of you. Now I'm getting discouraged.
> Only 750 free downloads and less than 30 of books 2 and 3 combined in 3 weeks.
> I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.
> 
> ...


There's a lot of heavy hitters in this thread with incredibly rare first-time sales. I don't sell like that. I sell well because I've been doing this for two years and have a huge backlist that supports me. I've never had a series as successful as Viola's, and I only have maybe 1 out of 10 series that are "hits". But that's okay. My backlist sales are incredibly steady, and I think that that is much more common than people that have a hugely successful initial release .

If you want to increase your sales, the first thing I'd do is some market research. Start checking out best seller lists. Check out the best seller lists for popular genres. See what type of niches are selling right now. See what people are buying. And then quickly (this is the important part because trends shift around a lot) release a new series in those niches.

Werewolf romance/erotica is hot right now. It will probably remain hot for awhile. Anything "New Adult" is hot right now (college-age sexy). Vampires are out. Shifters are in. Witches seem to be trending up. BDSM erotica is out. BDSM romance erotica is currently in but probably on its way out. Alpha males of any type are always in. Dominant females are trending up. Love triangles are currently in.


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## GaryCecil (Jan 5, 2014)

Briteka said:


> If you want to increase your sales, the first thing I'd do is some market research. Start checking out best seller lists. Check out the best seller lists for popular genres. See what type of niches are selling right now. See what people are buying. And then quickly (this is the important part because trends shift around a lot) release a new series in those niches.


I'm sorry, but that's not writing. That's something else. I don't think any famous author (who went on to write for years, not just one-hit-wonders), found the book they wanted to write in a bestseller list. They found it within themselves. In their hearts. In the pages of a thousand books they read, or in the scenes of a thousand movies they watched.

That's what writing is all about. It's not about money. Writing for the market will only get you so far. I'd want to write something that I came up with, completely from my own intuition. I don't want to be a shadow of another author's success, I want to be my own image. Maybe I'll never become a bestseller, maybe I'll never have a "living income" from writing, but one thing I will have (no matter what), is writing that comes from within my heart.

I'm not saying you don't write from your heart, or anything like that, but I do think your advice is poor.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

GaryCecil said:


> I'm sorry, but that's not writing. That's something else. I don't think any famous author (who went on to write for years, not just one-hit-wonders), found the book they wanted to write in a bestseller list. They found it within themselves. In their hearts. In the pages of a thousand books they read, or in the scenes of a thousand movies they watched.
> 
> That's what writing is all about. It's not about money. Writing for the market will only get you so far. I'd want to write something that I came up with, completely from my own intuition. I don't want to be a shadow of another author's success, I want to be my own image. Maybe I'll never become a bestseller, maybe I'll never have a "living income" from writing, but one thing I will have (no matter what), is writing that comes from within my heart.
> 
> I'm not saying you don't write from your heart, or anything like that, but I do think your advice is poor.


We were never discussing how to "write from your heart". We were discussing how to increase sales. My advice is very good for people that would like to sell well. It's probably not so good for people that want to be a "fulfilled" starving artists.


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## GaryCecil (Jan 5, 2014)

Briteka said:


> We were never discussing how to "write from your heart". We were discussing how to increase sales. My advice is very good for people that would like to sell well. It's probably not so good for people that want to be a "fulfilled" starving artists.


It's not about being a "starving" artist. What good are "increases in sales" if you aren't writing from the heart? Something pure. It's hard not to be artificial if you scan a bestseller list, and write something "just like them."


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

GaryCecil said:


> It's not about being a "starving" artist. What good are "increases in sales" if you aren't writing from the heart? Something pure. It's hard not to be artificial if you scan a bestseller list, and write something "just like them."


Because money may not buy happiness, but it buys everything else.

We aren't just "writers". We're also businesspeople, publishers and advertisers. One of the biggest decisions a publisher has to make when deciding on a manuscript is "will this sell". Is there a market for it? Is it in a genre that people care about? We have to do the same. Writing to a market has always been a good long-term strategy. Every manuscript James Patterson slaps his name on is written for a popular market. Every formulaic love story Nicholas Sparks turns out is tightly constructed to take advantage of that market.

Are these fulfilled writers? I don't know. James Patterson isn't because he doesn't even write his own books. But they are certainly best selling writers.


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## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

I think of it as a Venn diagram:  What I like, what large numbers of readers will love, and what fits into a clearly defined genre with high visibility.

I am plopping my backside down in the middle where these three things meet.  No compromises.  I'm finding where I can have tons of fun and still please a lot of people who can find me easily.  If I didn't do things like play around with concepts of free will and identity and that kind of thing, I'd probably be even more popular.  (Did I mention I have a BBW werewolf biker serial being released starting next Tuesday?  Oh, yes, I do, and I'm having the time of my life writing it.)  But I can hang out in the edges of the sweet spot and still do fine.

I'm also doing some stuff that's only in the me/genre overlap right now, too, in the same world.  Readers who happen to like those less popular genres will also like my more popular work--it's a much, much smaller audience, but it's a different one.  If I get a big enough audience that discoverability isn't a huge issue, I'll do lots of heavy lifting in the me/audience overlap and worry less about genre.


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## Carradee (Aug 21, 2010)

GaryCecil said:


> I'm sorry, but that's not writing. That's something else. I don't think any famous author (who went on to write for years, not just one-hit-wonders), found the book they wanted to write in a bestseller list.


Actually, that's very much writing. What, you think the folks who write product descriptions necessarily love their work? It's possible for a writer to be able to write something they actively dislike, in such a way that readers enjoy it. I've done it. (Key is to find _something_ enjoyable about the process.)

Besides which... You can read bestseller lists to come up with inspiration for a story. Viola has said outright she picked story elements for her serial to encourage it to sell, and she's selling better than most of us, right now.



vmblack said:


> I think of it as a Venn diagram: What I like, what large numbers of readers will love, and what fits into a clearly defined genre with high visibility.
> 
> I am plopping my backside down in the middle where these three things meet. No compromises. I'm finding where I can have tons of fun and still please a lot of people who can find me easily. If I didn't do things like play around with concepts of free will and identity and that kind of thing, I'd probably be even more popular. (Did I mention I have a BBW werewolf biker serial being released starting next Tuesday? Oh, yes, I do, and I'm having the time of my life writing it.) But I can hang out in the edges of the sweet spot and still do fine.


Good way of putting it.


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## GaryCecil (Jan 5, 2014)

But she also loves the genre she writes in. She wrote the story she wanted to write, and only tailored it to specific things, which bothered her in the genre in which she loved to read and write about.


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## GaryCecil (Jan 5, 2014)

Carradee said:


> Actually, that's very much writing. What, you think the folks who write product descriptions necessarily love their work? It's possible for a writer to be able to write something they actively dislike, in such a way that readers enjoy it. I've done it. (Key is to find _something_ enjoyable about the process.)


That's the _act_ of writing, not the _art_ of writing.


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## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

GaryCecil said:


> But she also loves the genre she writes in. She wrote the story she wanted to write, and only tailored it to specific things, which bothered her in the genre in which she loved to read and write.


There are a LOT of genres, though, and amazing bestsellers in each. Find a genre--any genre with strong sales--that appeals to you. Then figure out what you can write in it that people will want to read.

I would be equally happy writing high fantasy, straight dark fantasy, historical fiction, space opera, and historical romance. Seriously.  I could warm up to thrillers, horror, and suspense because what I write has strong streaks of all three.

With a PNR universe, I can do PNR itself, romance, SF, and fantasy, and I can do historical on the side, too. So I'm really happy here.


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## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

Right now, on my hard drive, I have 300 pages of a 1600s-set literary fiction romance (a romance in the 1800s sense more than the genre sense) written in a nonlinear fashion with interweaving themes much like Joseph Conrad's Nostromo.  It covers, among other things, the 1619 arrival of the ship of women in Jamestown and the 1622 massacre.  It also includes battery, a stillbirth, the death of a husband, and a child almost dying from a snakebite.

I love it.  It's lyrical and beautiful--and my critique partners went crazy for it, more than any other book I've ever written.  I had one who said she dreamed about the book, repeatedly, it haunted her so much.  

It's not finished for a reason.  There is no ready market for this book.


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## Carradee (Aug 21, 2010)

GaryCecil said:


> That's the _act_ of writing, not the _art_ of writing.


And intentionally creating something that'll produce different responses in different types of people can't be art, if the author's outside the target readership? I call BS. Even a painter with the skill but not the desire to paint portraits can produce a stunning one, if they choose to.


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## fallswriter (Sep 11, 2012)

vmblack said:


> Right now, on my hard drive, I have 300 pages of a 1600s-set literary fiction romance (a romance in the 1800s sense more than the genre sense) written in a nonlinear fashion with interweaving themes much like Joseph Conrad's Nostromo. It covers, among other things, the 1619 arrival of the ship of women in Jamestown and the 1622 massacre. It also includes battery, a stillbirth, the death of a husband, and a child almost dying from a snakebite.
> 
> I love it. It's lyrical and beautiful--and my critique partners went crazy for it, more than any other book I've ever written. I had one who said she dreamed about the book, repeatedly, it haunted her so much.
> 
> It's not finished for a reason. There is no ready market for this book.


Well, you have a market of one. That sounds fantastic! Get it out there - you never know until you do!!


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## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

I don't know why there is always such hoopla about the subject of art vs business. Is writing not a business? In what other business do you not do market research and cater to customer expectations? I find this argument pretty ridiculous. Why publish at all if you don't want to make money? Why not just do public readings at your local coffee shop or send your work to literary agents for the rest of your life?

If you want to run a business, and thus make a livable income from your writing, you have to cater to an audience. It blows my mind that people believe the audience will just come to them. It isn't 2011 anymore. The market is full of books, and if you don't give people what they want and expect, you will disappear.

I never read romance until recently because of prejudice, but I found romance genres I love. I've written a novel that fits into the genre expectations, but it also is deeply personal. I was able to write about things I would never have been able to write about in another genre. Yes. This totally marketable book comes straight from my heart. It has an MMA biker in it with a bunch of tattoos, but the story line and themes allowed me to express myself in ways my scifi stories never would. The feedback I've received from ARC readers tells me they love it.

Now that I've given romance a chance. Guess what? I love it. We can all keep learning new things to be better business people. It isn't like you have to keep the same exact skill set for the rest of your career that you started with. Or the same likes and dislikes or the same interests. People grow. 

Aren't business people and sales people constantly encouraged to continue to learn? I don't get why people think you are 'selling out' if you learn something new that you can use to better adapt your writing to the market. It's just ridiculous. To me 'selling out' would be accepting that I'll never make a living as a writer and to get a crappy job I hate, while I pay off an expensive Humanities degree.


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## Carina Wilder (Nov 12, 2013)

> Right now, on my hard drive, I have 300 pages of a 1600s-set literary fiction romance (a romance in the 1800s sense more than the genre sense) written in a nonlinear fashion with interweaving themes much like Joseph Conrad's Nostromo. It covers, among other things, the 1619 arrival of the ship of women in Jamestown and the 1622 massacre. It also includes battery, a stillbirth, the death of a husband, and a child almost dying from a snakebite.
> 
> I love it. It's lyrical and beautiful--and my critique partners went crazy for it, more than any other book I've ever written. I had one who said she dreamed about the book, repeatedly, it haunted her so much.
> 
> It's not finished for a reason. There is no ready market for this book.


I'd totally read that book.


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## GaryCecil (Jan 5, 2014)

vmblack said:


> Right now, on my hard drive, I have 300 pages of a 1600s-set literary fiction romance (a romance in the 1800s sense more than the genre sense) written in a nonlinear fashion with interweaving themes much like Joseph Conrad's Nostromo. It covers, among other things, the 1619 arrival of the ship of women in Jamestown and the 1622 massacre. It also includes battery, a stillbirth, the death of a husband, and a child almost dying from a snakebite.
> 
> I love it. It's lyrical and beautiful--and my critique partners went crazy for it, more than any other book I've ever written. I had one who said she dreamed about the book, repeatedly, it haunted her so much.
> 
> It's not finished for a reason. There is no ready market for this book.


I'm sorry, but I don't follow your logic. Why not be the market leader for this then, if there's nothing else like it? Or why not throw it out there, and then, when the "market" is ready, you'll already be there, while everyone else is still lacing up their shoes, trying to join to marathon?

Isn't yesterday the best day to release your eBook?

ATTENTION ALL: I love to debate. It's in my nature. I question all things, and you should too! Especially question me! I'm not trying to "bash" or "hurt" anyone, and I wish you all 20 MILLION POUNDS of success, I really do. I don't debate it in a spiteful fashion (honest). Unfortunately, you can't hear my voice, and you're only left with my words, which I'm secretly writing at my desk. 

But, I have to believe that writing for a "best-selling market" (while potentially profitable) is morally wonky. I'm not against you, though. I'm not. I just think that budding artists, or anyone reading these posts, needs to know that they should write the book they want to write, and not the book they "think" will sell. Nothing is a guarantee, you all know that, most WAY more than I do. In the end, the truly TOP-DOGS write from their hearts, or at least wrote that way to become the millionaires they longed to be (some behind closed doors, some shouting from the rooftops).

I write horror because that's me. I also love action/drama/sports. I do all of those things because they're me. It's what I love. I love the smell of a baseball field, and I love the glove that Freddy Krueger uses to kill his victims! It would be so false if I tried to write a romance about werewolves, just because it's "selling." This is not a slant toward anyone who is currently doing this, as I'm sure (I hope) you loved this type of stuff in the first place!


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## Carina Wilder (Nov 12, 2013)

> But, I have to believe that writing for a "best-selling market" (while potentially profitable) is morally wonky.


I have no problem with you saying that. But in defense of all of us moral wonks, I'll say this: I started writing to write, because I love it. The first thing I wrote had no big market. When I first started publishing I put out something that I thought was unique, original. "They'll love it, because it's so different. It'll stir imaginations," etc. Sold terribly, of course.

I think we write to write. Publishing is different; it's a business, as people say, and so sometimes it's necessary or at least advisable to follow market trends. That doesn't mean you can't still write books that fall into no category whatsoever; it simply means that you're not likely to earn a living that way, and if your goal is a living, the more certain way to it is to pay attention to readers.


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## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

GaryCecil said:


> But, I have to believe that writing for a "best-selling market" (while potentially profitable) is morally wonky. I'm not against you, though. I'm not. I just think that budding artists, or anyone reading these posts, needs to know that they should write the book they want to write, and not the book they "think" will sell. Nothing is a guarantee, you all know that, most WAY more than I do. In the end, the truly TOP-DOGS write from their hearts, or at least wrote that way to become the millionaires they longed to be (some behind closed doors, some shouting from the rooftops).


Personally, I don't understand this at all. Should graphic artists refuse to make logos because it doesn't come from their hearts? As self pub fiction authors, we have the privilege to write for ourselves, but that doesn't mean we don't have to consider the customer. If you want people to buy what you have to sell, you have to write what they want. That does not in any way mean you cannot write from your heart. I think the best thing you can do is write from your heart but to the market. Readers can sense that you are pouring yourself on the page, but it's in a format they want and understand.

Perhaps, if you read a lot of romance and found a genre you liked, you could write romance. I think I could write just about anything if I learned the tropes for that genre. Having freelanced non fiction and having written 1000 essays for school, I'm pretty confident I can write pretty much anything. Believe me, every piece of fiction I write for the market is way more "from my heart" than anything I had to write as a freelancer or for school.


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## I Give Up (Jan 27, 2014)

Guys, please make a new thread to debate writing from your heart versus writing to market. I'll gladly participate and add my input, but let's keep this about serials.


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## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

Ann, could you split this off, please?  (Writing this to flag myself.  LOL.)

ETA:  Can't flag yourself, so I flagged Viola's comment and added my own.


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## KBoards Admin (Nov 27, 2007)

Note: We split the above discussion off from the "Serialized Romance" thread, to keep the two discussion topics separate.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

I am one of the people who writes "from the heart" (although maybe "from the guts" or "from my twisted brain" is more like it, because my stories aren't particularly, er, heartwarming). It's not because I don't want to sell out and make money, though. It's because I am seriously incapable of writing things that will sell. I always think I've got something marketable, and then I publish it and realize I was being really stupid, because mainstream audiences aren't interested in gritty, violent romances between anti-heroes. Mainstream audiences like stalwart heroes, easily-identifiable bad guys, and happy endings. And I can't write those kinds of stories to save my life.

Okay. I'm lying. I _could_ write those stories.

But I don't. I don't because they don't feel true to me.

Because I write for myself and not for other people.

And that's the thing that's always confused me about this argument. You always have people arguing that it's more "pure" and "moral" to write from your heart.

But I'm not going to say that. I write the way I do, because I'm selfish. If I wanted to be pure and moral, I'd write things that made _other people_ happy and not what made _me _happy.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

I think it's a bit more complex than just "write for yourself" or "write for the market." You can write for yourself _and_ write for the market. Don't chase trends, but find what you love to write and find out how you can present it in a way that can find the right audience. Publishing isn't just one big market. It's a whole crapton of small markets all mixed together. Find the one that's right for you and write for it.


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## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

Okay, now, as to why I'm not putting that out right now....

There is not one person on all of Amazon who says, "What I want right now is early colonial American nonlinear romantic literary fiction."  Not ONE.  I have no audience.  That makes discoverability a huge problem.

If I get to be a great-selling author, I can publish it and her enough visibility that it won't utterly tank.  I'll have to slap warning on it for my regular readers, so they don't buy it if they think it's something else.  And it will sell terribly compared to other things that I write unless lightning strikes.  But then, people who are interested might actually find it.


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## olefish (Jan 24, 2012)

valeriec80 said:


> But I'm not going to say that. I write the way I do, because I'm selfish. If I wanted to be pure and moral, I'd write things that made _other people_ happy and not what made _me _happy.


you got that right for me at least. I write what I want because I'm selfish and egotistical. Writing takes a lot of effort for me, and I sure wouldn't waste all of my blood and tears on something I don't care about. I'm too full of myself to do that. I might as well go flip burgers, and at least with burger flipping, I can count on a steady paycheck.

This isn't to say that those who write marketable books are selling out. I don't believe that. Stephanie Meyers wrote a Twilight because she liked writing it. E.L. James enjoyed every minute of writing fifty shades of grey.Although I don't care much for fsog, you can still feel her sheer delight in writing the book.

As long as you're doing what makes you happy and I'm doing what makes me happy, I won't complain.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think some people have no choice in this. At least for me, if God came down from Heaven and told me I could sell books if I wrote certain things that don't appeal to me, and would never sell a single book if I wrote the kind of romance or mystery I like, I'd say, okay, and go get a job. At the core, I think I'm more of a storyteller than writer, and you couldn't pay me enough to spend time laboring over stories I didn't like, much less ones I actively dislike. The fact is there are some genres you couldn't pay me enough to *read*. I'm that way about a lot of other things in life too. For instance, I have and love large dogs. If you told me I could only have small dogs from now on, I'd go get a cat.

It's my impression from years on KBoards that for some other writers, the act of writing itself is what they love, using words to some purpose, and they aren't as narrow-minded as I am about the subject.

I don't see either way as right or wrong. We are who we are, and writers who are more flexible about subject certainly have a lot more flexibility. I also don't think writers like me are doomed to failure unless what they love is a really, really obscure niche. When I published my first western historical romance I figured it would be lucky to sell anything because it's an obscure, passé niche. One of the anti-indies, commenting on a review of that first romance, called it a "rinky-dink" subgenre. I wouldn't argue, but it's been pretty good to me.


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## J.A. Sutherland (Apr 1, 2014)

Tom Hanks may not have had Bosum Buddies or Bachelor Party in his heart, but they allowed him to do Saving Private Ryan and Castaway.  Writing to the market to some extent allows you to then follow your heart.


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## olefish (Jan 24, 2012)

J.A. Sutherland said:


> Tom Hanks may not have had Bosum Buddies or Bachelor Party in his heart, but they allowed him to do Saving Private Ryan and Castaway. Writing to the market to some extent allows you to then follow your heart.


Tom Hanks knows for sure that he's getting paid either way. While with the writing thing, even if you decide to write a bbw werewolf erotica because it's a hot genre, there's no guarantee of your profit.


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## Guest (May 3, 2014)

I love monsters and monsters are in my themes.  Currently, it's zombies.  If I didn't think my stuff would sell, I may still write it, but I wouldn't bother publishing it.  I'm not going to spend money on an editor, a cover artist, promotion and everything else just for the heck of it.


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## Guest (May 3, 2014)

olefish said:


> Tom Hanks knows for sure that he's getting paid either way. While with the writing thing, even if you decide to write a bbw werewolf erotica because it's a hot genre, there's no guarantee of your profit.


Guarantee of a profit is not the issue, at least it's not for me. I know what books _have_ sold. That gives me an idea of what _could_ happen for me. Is it a guarantee? No. But by studying the market, I know the odds.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Writing to market doesn't equal writing things that don't appeal to you. If you like sweet romances, and it so happens that sweet romances about trapeze artists are selling like crazy, do you find it acceptable to write your from the heart sweet romance with a trapeze guy in there? Yes? Then write to market. If you were beaten up by a trapeze artist as a child or you hate money, just write a sweet romance without one. 

I write from the heart and write to market. Some things are the stories of my heart. Some things I write because they sell. Some combine the two--those are the ones that make me happiest. And if someone thinks I'm morally off for writing things that sell, I don't even know how to respond to that politely.

If you want to sell books, you'll write to market as much as you can. Sales aren't every writer's goal, which is fine. There are people who paint for art's sake, and those who paint commercially. One isn't better than the other; they're just different.


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## starkllr (Mar 21, 2013)

ellenoc said:


> Maybe I'm wrong, but I think some people have no choice in this. At least for me, if God came down from Heaven and told me I could sell books if I wrote certain things that don't appeal to me, and would never sell a single book if I wrote the kind of romance or mystery I like, I'd say, okay, and go get a job. At the core, I think I'm more of a storyteller than writer, and you couldn't pay me enough to spend time laboring over stories I didn't like, much less ones I actively dislike. The fact is there are some genres you couldn't pay me enough to *read*. I'm that way about a lot of other things in life too. For instance, I have and love large dogs. If you told me I could only have small dogs from now on, I'd go get a cat.


This pretty much describes me as well. I wrote my series the way it was because that's the story as it came to me. I simply am not capable of putting in the time and effort to write 85,000 word novels unless I "feel" the story in my gut. And I can't do more than very slightly tweak it for market.

I wish I could! I have a dozen other things I'd like to write, some of which might be more popular/easier to sell than my Dream Series books, but I can sit at the computer until my eyes start to bleed and I don't make any progress on them. I can only write well, and consistently, from my heart. I very much admire and envy people who have more discipline than I do!


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## Guest (May 3, 2014)

shelleyo1 said:


> Writing to market doesn't equal writing things that don't appeal to you. If you like sweet romances, and it so happens that sweet romances about trapeze artists are selling like crazy, do you find it acceptable to write your from the heart sweet romance with a trapeze guy in there? Yes? Then write to market. If you were beaten up by a trapeze artist as a child or you hate money, just write a sweet romance without one.
> 
> I write from the heart and write to market. Some things are the stories of my heart. Some things I write because they sell. Some combine the two--those are the ones that make me happiest. And if someone thinks I'm morally off for writing things that sell, I don't even know how to respond to that politely.
> 
> If you want to sell books, you'll write to market as much as you can. Sales aren't every writer's goal, which is fine. There are people who paint for art's sake, and those who paint commercially. One isn't better than the other; they're just different.


Many of us write from the heart AND write to market. This notion that they're always separate is false and often perpetuated by folks who don't like popular books.


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## AngryGames (Jul 28, 2013)

I've had a freebie hit the top 100 this week, after being out for a year. Readers have been asking/demanding more, yet I've just not been able to come up with anything from the heart. I refuse to write just to make a buck, even knowing those bucks could fix a lot of things around the house (or fix my neighbors by allowing me to buy three Marshall 100w full stacks, plugging in my guitar like Marty McFly, and simply blowing their house off its foundation). 

It sucks knowing I could make a good amount of money if I'd just write something, anything. But it sucks more (for me, anyway) trying to write a story that my heart is not into. 

I think everyone has their own line where they have to decide whether or not to cross it. I won't, but I don't look down on anyone who does. You do what you have to do. I wish I could write erotica so I could pay the bills, but I sound like a 14 year old boy writing to Penthouse, so I will eat Ramen for another month or two .


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

GaryCecil said:


> But she also loves the genre she writes in. She wrote the story she wanted to write, and only tailored it to specific things, which bothered her in the genre in which she loved to read and write about.


That puts it very well. I think, if it doesn't come from the heart, if you're not loving it, readers won't love it either.

I didn't do market research. Deliberately. I had no idea "what was selling." I don't write New Adult, BDSM, angst, paranormal, or any of the other trending subgenres. My first book sold because it touched some people's emotions and was an enjoyable escape. For the exact same reasons I wrote it.

That said, if you write poetry, if you write literary fiction, of course it'd be realistic to set your sales expectations lower. You'll have an easier time if you write romance or mystery. But if you're only writing romance (or a specific subgenre of it) because you've seen that other people sell big writing it, I'm not sure how successful it's going to be.

Some authors seem to be able to do that--cast an eye at "what's selling now," write that, and sell. If you can, you probably already know you can. I think most of us have to write the book in our hearts, the way we want to write it, and that's our best shot at selling big.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

GaryCecil said:


> That's the _act_ of writing, not the _art_ of writing.


Fine. Special people are artists and they get to say who else is special. They also get to say what is writing and what is not. So what? Let them.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Fine. Special people are artists and they get to say who else is special. They also get to say what is writing and what is not. So what? Let them.


The funniest thing is that a vast majority of people posting in this thread would be considered genre hacks polluting the world of books and true art by a large demographic of people.

The reality is if you want to be considered an artist by all the important people, contract Harold Bloom to hover over you and critique everything as you write it. If you'd like to sell, write something people actually want to buy.


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

My first book was written for my wife, to be read only by my wife. I never intended to publish it. But she thought I should so I did. I don't sell much but it's more than I expected to when I began down this road. And I still write because I enjoy it.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> The funniest thing is that a vast majority of people posting in this thread would be considered genre hacks polluting the world of books and true art by a large demographic of people.


God Bless the lumpen, for without them the elite would have to define themselves by what they are rather than what they are not.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Briteka said:


> The funniest thing is that a vast majority of people posting in this thread would be considered genre hacks polluting the world of books and true art by a large demographic of people.
> *snip*


LOL! So true! Oh, well. Happily hacking away writing what I love.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Rosalind James said:


> LOL! So true! Oh, well. Happily hacking away writing what I love.


Have you been granted approval for what you love?


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## I Give Up (Jan 27, 2014)

Here goes, as promised. I think there are people who can write purely from their hearts and be successful. I think there are people who can write purely to market and be successful. I think both of these types of people are outliers. I believe that the majority of successful writers fall somewhere in the middle.

I don't like reading books with overweight heroines, because I am overweight and reading is an escape for me. I made a concession and wrote a body-positive, slightly overweight heroine.

I love paranormal romance, but I'm just more of a lions and tigers and bears kinda girl. Werewolves are hot though, so I made a concession and wrote werewolves.

Now, those seem like the two biggest aspects of my story. How can I possibly love a Werewolf/BBW serial when I don't like writing werewolves and I don't like writing BBWs?

Well, one thing I realized very early on in my writing, was that 'werewolf' and 'BBW' were nothing but labels. Compared to the paranormal love story I've written and the fantasy surroundings that frame it, they're virtually irrelevant. By book three, my werewolves could be hyenas and my BBW could have thigh-gap and my fans wouldn't care, because I've crafted a story that I'm passionate about and characters that I love.

*tl;dr*_The marketing draws them in, it's what you write and how you write it that will both keep you fulfilled and keep your readers craving the next book._


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Briteka said:


> There's a lot of heavy hitters in this thread with incredibly rare first-time sales. I don't sell like that. I sell well because I've been doing this for two years and have a huge backlist that supports me. I've never had a series as successful as Viola's, and I only have maybe 1 out of 10 series that are "hits". But that's okay. My backlist sales are incredibly steady, and I think that that is much more common than people that have a hugely successful initial release .
> 
> If you want to increase your sales, the first thing I'd do is some market research. Start checking out best seller lists. Check out the best seller lists for popular genres. See what type of niches are selling right now. See what people are buying. And then quickly (this is the important part because trends shift around a lot) release a new series in those niches.
> 
> Werewolf romance/erotica is hot right now. It will probably remain hot for awhile. Anything "New Adult" is hot right now (college-age sexy). Vampires are out. Shifters are in. Witches seem to be trending up. BDSM erotica is out. BDSM romance erotica is currently in but probably on its way out. Alpha males of any type are always in. Dominant females are trending up. Love triangles are currently in.


If I wanted writing to be as grim and unpleasant as working in a cubical jungle, I'd take your advice, although I seriously doubt that I would be good at writing a genre I hate. Choosing the most popular amongst genres you like makes sense to me, but not writing something I can't stand. And for that matter, a person can do quite well writing genres that rarely make the top best seller list.

I don't care whether someone else thinks I am a hack or not. As a matter of fact, I was called a hack just today by a British editor. But it is important to me to spend my time writing something that *I* care about. That's me. Other people should do what they think is right for them.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Have you been granted approval for what you love?


Sorry, huh? Not sure i get it? If you mean do I sell well, yeah, I do. If you mean do people respect me, well, maybe not. But my readers like what I write, including some pretty darn intelligent ones. They aren't discussing my work in any book groups, and the Nobel Committee isn't warming up the jet, but those things were never my intention. I write to entertain people, and I'm doing that, so I'm happy.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

JRTomlin said:


> If I wanted writing to be as grim and unpleasant as working in a cubical jungle, I'd take your advice, although I seriously doubt that I would be good at writing a genre I hate. Choosing the most popular amongst genres you like makes sense to me, but not writing something I can't stand. And for that matter, a person can do quite well writing genres that rarely make the top best seller list.
> 
> I don't care whether someone else thinks I am a hack or not. As a matter of fact, I was called a hack just today by a British editor. But it is important to me to spend my time writing something that *I* care about. That's me. Other people should do what they think is right for them.


Just to be clear, this was broken off from another thread where we were discussing publishing romantic serials, and I was giving popular niches within that genre.


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## beccaprice (Oct 1, 2011)

I knew when I started that children's books were a hard market, and that fairy tales as a sub-category were an even harder market. But, right now, that's what I'm writing.  I have 3 or 4 more stories to whip into shape, and maybe get illustrated and published, because that's what I've got mostly done. I love my fairy tales, and limited though the market be, within that market they seem to have found a home and are well-received.

but when the fairy tales are done, I may start what I always thought I'd write, which are historical romances.  or I may try my hand at erotica. Probably not SF - I'd be comparing myself to Lois Bujold with every word I wrote in that genre, and would find my self lacking.,

But I've been a technical writer for 30 years and pretty much always found enjoyment in writing about what ever I was assigned to or the next contract called for. So when the fairy tales dry up, or get out of my system, I have no doubt but that I'll come up with *something* and with luck it'll be more marketable than my fairy tales.


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

Although I didn't exactly write to market (well, I did with one title, and it worked reasonably well for a time), I have stayed exclusively in the romance/erotic romance genres, grudgingly, and for a lot longer than I'd intended. Now, the thought of writing any kind of romance makes my insides hurt. I've contributed some 20 books of various sizes, and they've been paying my bills. What they will also do is pay for all of those fancy things I'll need to launch my "passion projects" (read: hard sells) -- editing, cover design, marketing etc. For that, I will be eternally grateful. Thank you, market.

Aside from the pecuniary rewards, you can also learn a lot and improve as a writer/publisher. I suppose it's really up to the individual how much he/she gets out of it.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Anwen Stiles said:


> I don't understand where this moral condemnation is coming from, wonky or otherwise. It implies there is a limited quantity of artistry in the universe, and failure to use yours in a non-commercial fashion is a criminal misuse of natural resources. I'm reminded of the old "Every Sperm Is Sacred" song from Monty Python's "Meaning of Life." Shan't waste a drop of sacred artistry ... is that the case here? Because artistry is so great? And if I do waste it, will God get quite irate?


Yes. And Sie will smite you.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> But, I have to believe that writing for a "best-selling market" (while potentially profitable) is morally wonky. I'm not against you, though. I'm not. I just think that budding artists, or anyone reading these posts, needs to know that they should write the book they want to write, and not the book they "think" will sell.


Why should they do that?


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## Scott Pixello (May 4, 2013)

My opinion, for what it's worth, in the 'Art' v 'Heart' debate is you have to do both, which a number of you have said but you have to do both _to be successful at both_. If you only write for a market, it can be absolutely soul-destroying- why would you spend the hundreds/thousands of hours that fiction can take if you're not doing something you genuinely like? That way madness (& at the very least burn-out/depression) lies. If you only write for yourself, then it's a personal hobby. That's fine and people do that but if you want others to read your work, you have to consider the impact of your words on others (that's the whole craft of writing, surely?). Furthermore, if you only write for yourself, what you produce in a sense has the same status as a screenplay, a kind of limbo artefact that only exists as a theory. It's only when you shoot a film and then show an audience (or when someone at least reads it) that it really becomes more than just ideas in your head.


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## LanelleH (Jul 4, 2013)

My book isn't out yet and I haven't officially published so I'm not sure about sales, etc.  But for me I write what I think would be entertaining, I take bits and pieces from popular books and sometimes I get influenced by trends.  But for the most part it's mainly self enjoyment, if it wasn't I wouldn't be able to write.  At all.  

Now once my book is out this may change depending on sells because, of course, what I like may not be what people want to read.  But right now it's purely self indulgence. :  )


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

I would never write to the market as I value my street cred too much  Actually, I tried to do so for 3 years as I wanted a novel that would impress an agent. In those 3 years I wrote 8000 words. I decided to self-publish and write the weird literary stuff I want to and wrote a 50000 word novel in 25 days.

But I don't write from the heart in that I don't think, "I like novels set in America I think I'll write one."

I am a slave to my muse. If she does not spark the idea I will write a 0 word novel. _Seattle in Shorts_ sprang into being because I said the phrase "That is a Seattle story" and my muse said "Yeah write a short story collection called _Seattle Stories_" and everything Cascaded from there.


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## EC (Aug 20, 2013)

Why not do both? 

Being poor is overrated.


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## Guest (May 3, 2014)

Here's my take. 

Recently, as of early April, one month ago, I began publishing in a pen name that is completely disguised hack written to the romance market. I hate romance. So this isn't me finding the romance in stories I already want to tell, this is pure crap on my end.

I tried writing from the heart (if that's what you want to call it). 4 Novels and 5 shorts in weird horror genre, as you see in my signature. I LOVE those stories. I believe my Park series is a masterpiece. And the truth - those books are obviously not appealing to most people. IE - It's going to be really, really, hard to get traction on them, no matter how good they are. 

People saying they can't write X genre, might be correct, but that's only because they haven't learned how. They haven't given it their all. I am a horror writer, but before that I am a writer. So say I'm at school and the teacher says, 'Hey class listen up. I need you all to write me a 20 thousand word story about a hot sexy barechested billionaire narrrated by a normal contemporary girl who may or may not fall for him... Because of course, money isn't everything ha ha' Then you get to it. I want an A in my class. 

Now think of readers as the teachers. They don't want to read my stories. They want what they want, and I think it's garbage, but now I have crossed the line and in April I got 62 sales. 7 were Shane Jeffery, and the rest were the pen name. These pen name stories, I am not even rereading them. Not even editing them. I am just putting them up without care or thought and I am getting fan mail, telling me I'm a great writer. I can't reread them, because I think they're that bad. 

I'll still write under Shane Jeffery, but you know, for fun. As a hobby. Because I LOVE it. Not for money.


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## EC (Aug 20, 2013)

ShaneJeffery said:


> Here's my take.
> 
> Recently, as of early April, one month ago, I began publishing in a pen name that is completely disguised hack written to the romance market. I hate romance. So this isn't me finding the romance in stories I already want to tell, this is pure crap on my end.
> 
> ...


Well, not being overly picky I think you should do those readers the courtesy of at least editing the stories. However, that being said I completely agree with your message.

Write. Earn.

Being broke is a bad gig.


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## Guest (May 3, 2014)

I agree it's better to have edited stories as opposed to non-edited stories. I just can't stomach the ghastliness of those stories that this point.


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## EC (Aug 20, 2013)

ShaneJeffery said:


> I agree it's better to have edited stories as opposed to non-edited stories. I just can't stomach the ghastliness of those stories that this point.


lol - fair enough


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

Morally wonky. Just can't get past that idea. Every writer is different, and the reasons they write are unique to each one of them. Nobody can sit in judgment over what another person writes.

I've said it before, but I'll repeat it again:  write with the heart, publish with the head. If you want to write a mash up of eight and a half genres, go right ahead. It's your story. But understand that it likely will sell few if any copies. That's the publishing part of this business. Nobody is guaranteed sales. No one. but who knows, you might be on the leading edge of readers wanting books like that, make a billion dollars, and laugh maniacally all the way to the bank in the Caymans.

I've been thinking a lot about writing in a popular genre (romance, erotica, erotic romance) in order to see if I can sell well. I don't see it as selling out my art, because I read so many genres and have story ideas in so many genres that I can easily see myself enjoying writing any of that as much as my beloved SF and Horror. I'll just need to read those kinds of books to see what's selling, and how I can use my own imagination to tell stories that I'm happy with. It's called market research.

Shane, the only issue I have with what you wrote is that you don't feel able to edit the books under your pen name. That's not being fair to the reader, or to your story. Of course, it seems you've written them well enough that people aren't freaking out over typos and such, so that's good. I'm sad that you seem to hate those books so much.   I've worked at jobs I hated, to the point it made me physically ill to even drive to work, so I can understand it, though.


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## a_g (Aug 9, 2013)

Anwen Stiles said:


> . I'm reminded of the old "Every Sperm Is Sacred" song from Monty Python's "Meaning of Life." Shan't waste a drop of sacred artistry ... is that the case here? Because artistry is so great? And if I do waste it, will God get quite irate?


I love that you knew that and I love that you quoted that.



ShaneJeffery said:


> Recently, as of early April, one month ago, I began publishing in a pen name that is completely disguised hack written to the romance market. I hate romance. So this isn't me finding the romance in stories I already want to tell, this is pure crap on my end.


So did Isabel Allende, apparently.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/14/isabel-allende-joke-crime-fiction-ripper?CMP=twt_fd

Let us know how that goes for you, and I mean that in all sincerity. If you're writing dreck and not giving a crap about the genre, seems to me that's a slap in the face of those who do care, especially the readers, even though they may not ever know the difference (which I'm not convinced they won't).

Write in the genre if you hate it to make money, no skin off my nose. _Talking_ about how you _hate_ it and gloating that you're churning out crap and not caring? Well...

general you in effect here:

In any case, I'm not sure about this apparent disconnect between writing what you love and writing for the market/readers. If you love _writing_, it seems that, much like Viola said, you can find a way to write something that standing alone doesn't exactly inflame your desires and turn it just enough so that you can still write _passionately_.

I like to read monsterotica but it's not something I want to write. I get that it sells really well (or used to). Since I don't want to write _that_ but I love to write, how can I mesh the two so I get what I want to write _and_ still, maybe, hit this monsterotica sweet spot?*

I'm a writer. Supposedly I'm creative. Surely I can do that. And I'm not stuck at my desk doing something I loathe just for the cash.

*It's still in the planning stages. I'm hoping I will be able to write it and make it work. In any case, I'm still excited for the idea, even if it's touching a subgenre I thought I wasn't interested in writing in. I'm excited about this idea, though.


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## I&#039;m a Little Teapot (Apr 10, 2014)

Dear everyone, 

Write what you want to write, be it for love, money, art, passion, or some combination of those. I will not care why you do it, and I will not judge you, as long as you entertain me. 

Love, Me. 

Edit: By the way, I write from my fingers. Things get bloody if I write from my heart. 

(Also, as a wise person once told me, write what you love, but keep a business eye on the market.)


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## Guest (May 3, 2014)

Sheila: I do intend to edit the stories eventually. I'm writing a serial at the moment and will probably edit it once the serial is complete. Also, while I immensely respect any readers of my, Shane Jeffery's,  work (and especially if they like it ha ha), I don't really care about these type of readers in the intimate compassionate way you might be thinking of. I care about them as much as I want to sell to them. But treating them with respect is only about the illusion they are being treated with respect, because I don't, in the heart respect them. 

I'm unemployed at the moment, since I was laid off in Janurary. I can't find a job no matter how many jobs I apply for. I live in the metropolitan, am healthy, but every job I apply for has 50 other applicants minimum. The job network (services) don't care. The government doesn't care. So instead of watching all these indie writers on here make thousands of dollars from serial work, I'm going to join in. It's not about expecting to succeed, it's about being able to go to sleep at night to say that I tried. And hell, I've already tried real hard to write my best work and no one cares about that. 

If I lived in America, I would probably be homeless.


anderson: Is it a slap in their face? Sure. I'm not really gloating though lol, I'm just showing that putting one percent effort into romance = sales traction, and putting a hundred and ten percent into horror = no sales traction. Sales = money = being able to breathe. I hate the stories, but I don't hate writing them. I like the idea of fooling people, sort of like an actor likes to make his audience believe he is the character. This is what I do in between praying I may someday, with about as much luck as it takes to sell books, that I can finally get a full time minimum wage job.


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## Guest (May 3, 2014)

Elizabeth Darkley said:


> One downside of writing to market is that loads of other people are doing the same as well; you'll be entering your book into an already saturated market.
> 
> Story remains king and everything else is window dressing, or as Viola put it, they're just labels.
> 
> ...


Hi Elizabeth,

You left a comment at my monster blog about the French zombie TV series "Les Revenants," otherwise known as "The Returned." You said you thought this is where zombie stuff is headed - alternative themes.

However, not everyone is interested in straying from the "formula." Many readers will always want the familiar.

I wrote a blog post about my experience with "The Returned." (http://www.preciousmonsters.com/2013/11/the-returned-perhaps-im-not.html) I left the series due to boredom.

I like the formula. I like my zombies "ugly and hungry and ready to kill."

Not everyone is looking for a twist on a zombie or a twist on a vampire or a twist on a werewolf. Many people are just looking for a good story within the formula.


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## Guest (May 3, 2014)

SevenDays said:


> Dear everyone,
> 
> Write what you want to write, be it for love, money, art, passion, or some combination of those. I will not care why you do it, and I will not judge you, as long as you entertain me.
> 
> Love, Me.


What a lovely thing to say, and I wish more people felt the way you do. (Authors love to pass judgement on other authors.)

However, if people choose to call me a hack, that's fine. I've been called worse. LOL!

P.S. I love your doggy avatar!


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## Jan Strnad (May 27, 2010)

Great discussion!

I made my living from writing for more than thirty years, writing comic books and TV cartoons. I didn't do much super-hero work, but what I've done has been my most financially rewarding stuff. The work I did in comics that gave me the most pleasure, also paid the least. I never particularly wanted to write cartoons, but it was really lucrative (until it suddenly wasn't). And I did get some satisfaction from crafting a good cartoon story, despite endless notes and revisions etc. that often seemed designed to drain the enjoyment out of the process.

Now I have a day job and I write what I want. Sales range from excellent to sucky month to month. I'm glad I don't depend on my books for my living.

But if I did, I'd have to focus on what sells and write that or as close to "that" as I could come. That's just the way it is when you're trying to make a living at anything.

Here's the only comment I've read in this discussion that struck me as shortsighted (sorry to the poster):



> There is not one person on all of Amazon who says, "What I want right now is early colonial American nonlinear romantic literary fiction." Not ONE. I have no audience.


No one was saying, "I want a young adult series of books, each of which is about three times longer than young adult books are, often very dark, about a boy wizard."

No one was saying to TV executives, "I want a rambling sitcom about shallow, self-centered characters who... no, scratch that, I want a show about nothing."

But _Harry Potter_ and _Seinfeld _both did pretty well.

You may "do well" following the pack, but if you want to hit it big, you have to give the audience what it wants even before they know they want it.


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## WG McCabe (Oct 13, 2012)

You wrote Prelude  to Rebellion? And Darkwing Duck eps? I LOVE that stuff! I KNEW your name sounded familiar to me.


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## Guest (May 3, 2014)

My desire is to replace my article writing income so that I don't have to write articles.  That doesn't mean I have to "hit it big."  In other words, I don't have to be a Viola or an H.M. Ward to achieve my goals.


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## GaryCecil (Jan 5, 2014)

Lady Vine said:


> Although I didn't exactly write to market (well, I did with one title, and it worked reasonably well for a time), I have stayed exclusively in the romance/erotic romance genres, grudgingly, and for a lot longer than I'd intended. Now, the thought of writing any kind of romance makes my insides hurt. I've contributed some 20 books of various sizes, and they've been paying my bills. What they will also do is pay for all of those fancy things I'll need to launch my "passion projects" (read: hard sells) -- editing, cover design, marketing etc. For that, I will be eternally grateful. Thank you, market.
> 
> Aside from the pecuniary rewards, you can also learn a lot and improve as a writer/publisher. I suppose it's really up to the individual how much he/she gets out of it.


So you released twenty books of of which you were not passionate about? You say it's paying you bills (and my all means, do what you have to do), but what kind of message are you sending to your fans? Do you honestly expect them to "jump on board" once you've reached your goal income for the projects you really wanted to write? I'm sorry, but it just sounds like a bad business strategy. I'm glad your making money, that's fantastic, but judging from your words you don't sound too proud, and your writing has become systematic, formulaic. That's a scary place to be. Imagine if you put the effort it took to produce those twenty books into three novels you were EXTREMELY passionate about, lost sleep over, couldn't wait to finish, edit, rinse, repeat.

Say you write that big hit, in the genre you love... That's great! But your back list is filled with stuff you really didn't want to write but had to write. That doesn't seem like the place you want to be. Business wise.


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## GaryCecil (Jan 5, 2014)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Why should they do that?


Maybe I could reword my phrasing as such: I just think that budding artists, or anyone reading these posts, needs to know that they should write the book they want to write, and not the book they "think" will sell. *And, if they're lucky, they can straddle both lines and be in two magical places at once.*

Writing about zombies just because zombies are popular is stupid. Writing about zombies because you LOVE them is wonderful. Both saturate the market, but you wanna bet who comes out on top? I'm assuming the latter. Same thing can be said about vampires or any other thing, really. There are FAR MORE successful authors who write from the heart than those who write from the head, and whose vision is blinded by dollar signs.

It's like filming a scene in a movie, then changing it because you know you can "dumb it down," maybe even get down to a PG-13 rating to sell more. One quick look at IMDB's Top 100 and you'll see (mostly) films which were made and which produced raw, emotional, and REAL things. Those are the pieces of art people remember. Not saying fudgesicles, when the F-word is the right response to stubbing your toe.

And some people are VERY right about "not knowing that you love something" until you invest a little more time in it. Wes Craven never intended to write and direct horror films, but as he got into them, there was no turning back. So, of course, I'm not saying limit your genre, or only "write what you know," but what I am saying is, you better be passionate about it. Passion bleeds right through the pages. Being fake is obvious, and will only get you so far, and eventually you will be forgotten.


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## Carina Wilder (Nov 12, 2013)

Symphony orchestras play pops concerts because they draw an audience, not for passion. Actors do commercials because they need to pay the bills, and it allows them then to take less well-paying work. Songwriters sell their tunes to companies to use in adverts. All these people are still artists. Maybe they don't love every hour of work, but they need to eat.

I suspect that more people here would rather write something they're not crazy about than take on another job that they hate.

That said, I'm having the time of my life writing my latest book, which is a romance. That can happen to.


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## a_g (Aug 9, 2013)

ShaneJeffery said:


> anderson: Is it a slap in their face? Sure. I'm not really gloating though lol, I'm just showing that putting one percent effort into romance = sales traction, and putting a hundred and ten percent into horror = no sales traction. Sales = money = being able to breathe. I hate the stories, but I don't hate writing them. I like the idea of fooling people, sort of like an actor likes to make his audience believe he is the character. This is what I do in between praying I may someday, with about as much luck as it takes to sell books, that I can finally get a full time minimum wage job.


Fair enough. 

I'm not sure I understand 'hate the stories, don't hate writing them' but that's me. It's not for me to understand. As it is consistently pointed out all the time, no two writers write the same. I certainly wish you luck!



GaryCecil said:


> Writing about zombies just because zombies are popular is stupid. Writing about zombies because you LOVE them is wonderful. Both saturate the market, but you wanna bet who comes out on top?


While I want to agree, my exchange with Shane is showing me otherwise. As long as the reader gets what they want and the story hits their marks within the reader, who am I to judge?



GaryCecil said:


> There are FAR MORE successful authors who write from the heart than those who write from the head, and whose vision is blinded by dollar signs.


But how do we know that?



GaryCecil said:


> but what I am saying is, you better be passionate about it. Passion bleeds right through the pages. Being fake is obvious, and will only get you so far, and eventually you will be forgotten.


Again, I agree about the passion but only because I don't believe in using my time doing things I don't like to do, not if I have a choice. Writing is included in that. The being fake aspect? Maybe they'll be forgotten, maybe not. If money is the motivator, being forgotten is relative. Being forgotten 10 years from now is far different from being forgotten in a month. It may not even be a concern for them.

I continue to teeter on the fence for a general opinion but I continue to do what my conscience tells me and what gives me the most pleasure while still trying to figure out how to leverage what I love, what I can do and what I want to do with what can help me pay the bills.


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## phildukephd (Jan 6, 2013)

Write from the heart it's the only way. Good luck!


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## Capella (Jan 16, 2014)

ShaneJeffery said:


> anderson: Is it a slap in their face? Sure. I'm not really gloating though lol, I'm just showing that putting one percent effort into romance = sales traction, and putting a hundred and ten percent into horror = no sales traction. Sales = money = being able to breathe. I hate the stories, but I don't hate writing them. I like the idea of fooling people, sort of like an actor likes to make his audience believe he is the character. This is what I do in between praying I may someday, with about as much luck as it takes to sell books, that I can finally get a full time minimum wage job.


Gadzooks, man. It's not a lack of respect for them, it sounds like it's bordering on hatred. But I don't believe it's hatred for reading what they want to read, I believe it's hatred that they don't appreciate what you want them to appreciate. It's hard to feel like the things we value most aren't valued by others, but that's not the fault of these readers.

Please try to have some compassion for these readers that are paying for your work. You might not escape in the way they do, but you may not understand their lives.

Sure, romances are a big part of the market, but so are thrillers. So are romantic suspense novels. Thrillers cost about as much to Bookbub as romance. Couldn't you write something in one of those genres and have a little less bile over it?

Do you feel that you put the same effort of researching what's selling right now in horror, as you did in writing to the most marketable romance tropes? Within romance, there is a range of marketability, from the hot stuff like FSOG, to all sorts of smaller genres that people like me write in. I assume there is the same in horror. I read quite a lot of horror, but I haven't studied the market as a writer.

Studying a genre to see what works and why is always beneficial. Trying to understand why the masses love something instead of deriding them for it is also a smart thing to do. Then we have to decide how far we are willing to go on the spectrum between what we love and what they love, and whether there is some place in between that is satisfying to both parties.

I wish you better luck in finding a job, and more joy in your life. Sounds like things are really tough right now.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Shane, I think it's great that you're making money writing romance. You should get your piece of the pie, right? Best of luck with the job search--I mean that sincerely.

But your attitude toward romance readers. _Wow. Oh, those stupid women who read my stories, don't respect 'em, slap 'em in the face, ptoooey. Give me your money, dumbos, while I talk about how moronic you are in a public forum._

Nobody knows what your romance pen name is, but your other books are right there in your sig. And despite them being right up my alley, I'll never buy one or recommend them to my friends.

You should have sense enough to know that if you really feel that way about women who read romance, it's probably best to keep it to yourself. Many read other genres, too. (Or maybe not your romance story readers, because they're dumb as hair?)

This has been an ugly place over the last couple of days, honest to god.


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## Guest (May 3, 2014)

GaryCecil said:


> Writing about zombies just because zombies are popular is stupid. Writing about zombies because you LOVE them is wonderful. Both saturate the market, but you wanna bet who comes out on top? I'm assuming the latter. Same thing can be said about vampires or any other thing, really. There are FAR MORE successful authors who write from the heart than those who write from the head, and whose vision is blinded by dollar signs.


Shane writes romance, but hates it.

However, Jolie is not a poser.

Nobody loves zombies more than I do.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Any writer who shows contempt for the people paying them money loses me as a potential reader. For good.


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## Nigel Mitchell (Jan 21, 2013)

This whole topic reminds me of a thread I created last year entitled "Trying to write romance, but I hate the genre"
http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,139970.msg2049079.html#msg2049079

Short version, I talked about how I saw how popular romance was and tried to write one, but created a worthless piece of trash because I don't understand or enjoy the genre. I was roundly crucified in the comments for daring to write something I didn't love just for money. I still feel it was a worthy experiment, especially if I had discovered I enjoyed and/or had a talent for it. I'm also incorporating some romantic elements into the scifi novel I'm writing, based on what I learned.

I'll add my two cents by saying I've been writing novels from my heart for years, experimental work like cartoon-based scifi comedy, and had an empty sales report to show for it. I've recently begun writing more straight science fiction and have been enjoying increased sales. So here's my opinion. You can write from your heart if you're not interested in sales and/or your heart lies in a popular genre. If you want to make a living off your work, write to market. As some commenters have said, you don't need to totally compromise your principles. You can sprinkle more marketable elements into the work you already write to broaden your audience.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Calling someone else's reasons for writing something stupid is such an arrogant, self-righteous attitude, I'm amazed anyone sensible would express it in public. Writing something that sells is not stupid. It's financially sound. It doesn't mean the person won't write stories from the heart, even if they're not the stories that happen to sell. And it doesn't mean those selling stories _aren't_ stories from the heart.

I don't personally care if someone's heart-stories are stories about the forgotten ferrets of WWII, and they refuse to write anything but that even if it means financial hardship. I just don't care. If that's how someone feels, that's how someone feels and I respect their right to feel that way. But if I vow to pen those WWII ferret stories when I can do so comfortably while some other stories are paying my bills, I would expect not to be insulted by those who'd rather never write a word outside their chosen stories, no matter what.

Can you honestly not see how ridiculous an argument it is? It's even worse when you assume that everyone writing in a popular niche is doing so just because it's popular and a potential money-maker. Many might be, sure, but not everyone. I wrote erotica before 50 Shades. I just didn't get paid as well for it. I also still write horror, LGBT YA and political conspiracy stories. Stop judging me and acting as if I'm not as good as you are because I'm unwilling to suffer because my heart-stories aren't going to pay my bills. Sorry kid, you can't go to college after all, because it would be stupid to write something that sells even though I can and don't mind doing it. Wtf.

I know a lot of people who've spent their lives working jobs they didn't really like, or at the very least didn't love, because they wanted and needed the money those jobs would pay them. So people who write stories that aren't necessarily the stories of their heart for the money those stories would pay them are different how, exactly? Who do you think you are to judge me for making a living?


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## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

Jan Strnad said:


> No one was saying, "I want a young adult series of books, each of which is about three times longer than young adult books are, often very dark, about a boy wizard."
> 
> No one was saying to TV executives, "I want a rambling sitcom about shallow, self-centered characters who... no, scratch that, I want a show about nothing."
> 
> ...


Harry Potter is a classic boy's school, coming-of-age, "chosen one" story. The first one also aped Roald Dahl. It wasn't just an easy sell in ONE genre--it was an easy sell in a LOT of genres.

The later fat ones were written after lightning struck an extraordinarily commercial work with a spectacularly great cover.

Even so, Rowling didn't do it the first or the best. Others did a way, way better job with the trope. Theirs didn't catch on fire.

Seinfeld was a sitcom. It pretended to be groundbreaking by being about "nothing," but Cheers had been there for YEARS already. Seinfeld slid very neatly into existing genre lines.

Writing in hopes of a lightning strike might be visionary. It's also delusional.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> Writing about zombies just because zombies are popular is stupid. Writing about zombies because you LOVE them is wonderful.


What is stupid about that? It is producing a product people want to consume.


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## Sonya Bateman (Feb 3, 2013)

Patrick Szabo said:


> You wrote Prelude to Rebellion? And Darkwing Duck eps? I LOVE that stuff! I KNEW your name sounded familiar to me.


Oh. My. God. Jan wrote DARKWING DUCK?! Thank you for pointing this out!

Jan, my husband and I totally love you. Well, your work. I'm sure we'd love you too.  Darkwing Duck was THE BEST show of the 90s. It was so great, we stopped watching TV when it didn't run any more. 

ETA: I see you also wrote episodes of many other shows that we love. I might have to worship you now... (don't worry, I will do it quietly and to myself )

All right, derailment over. Carry on.


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## Nigel Mitchell (Jan 21, 2013)

ShaneJeffery said:


> Now think of readers as the teachers. They don't want to read my stories. They want what they want, and I think it's garbage, but now I have crossed the line and in April I got 62 sales. 7 were Shane Jeffery, and the rest were the pen name. These pen name stories, I am not even rereading them. Not even editing them. I am just putting them up without care or thought and I am getting fan mail, telling me I'm a great writer. I can't reread them, because I think they're that bad.


Unlike the others, I have to say I'm impressed and admire your skill. I tried writing in a genre I didn't like (romance), and failed miserably.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Nigel Mitchell said:


> I talked about how I saw how popular romance was and tried to write one, but created a worthless piece of trash because I don't understand or enjoy the genre. I was roundly crucified in the comments for daring to write something I didn't love just for money.


The problem Nigel is that you were following the advice given freely by many members of this board to debut novelists worried about sales to check out the best-selling genres and write something in that. What you did was put that not so sage advice into practice.


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## Aero (Jan 17, 2014)

I like the fact that successful authors here are truly not just authors, they wear multiple hats, including marketing and publishing. There is a lot of great advice here, including getting your feet wet in a successful category vs. selling a book that while may be the greatest piece of literary work you have ever written, the fact is without KDP etc... chances are, you simply wouldn't be a published author.  It is very disappointing to see people then in turn complain about lack of sales and take out their narcissistic revenge on the people that are putting in the time to write. I believe that's against the forum rules.

If you test the waters in a new area and find out that you are either not good at it or don't feel comfortable writing in it, then what you have gained is experience. I would not suggest taking that experience away from anyone. 

This isn't a black or white topic and no one taking any sort of moral high-ground is going to be "right".


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

I feel sorry for the people who feel compelled to write in a genre or theme they rather wouldn't, simply due to economic or even ego pressures. It must suck to WANT to write some other kind of book, but still sit down and punch out a book they think will sell more than what they wished they could be writing. THAT'S a living hell.


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## Jan Strnad (May 27, 2010)

V. M., I think I understand your point, that these were not 100% original ideas. But in both cases, there was an original component that absolutely no one was asking for. The audience didn't know they'd like either of these properties until they came along, and in fact, the Harry Potter books came close to not getting published (and then earned a very modest advance), and Seinfeld was nearly dropped after the first screening. 

But they both found their audiences and established the tone for books/tv shows to come.

The audience wasn't out there saying, "Give me vampires that sparkle" or "Give me a story about people stuck in a big silo." (Or for a cartoon show about a super-hero duck... thanks for the compliments, folks!) The audience is reactive. We are the idea people. It's up to us to come up with stuff for readers to love, hate or ignore.

I think it's fine to analyze the market and find out "What's Selling NOW!" I have no problem with that at all. But to my mind, it's a step down from the people who create the original works that set the trend running.


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## Deke (May 18, 2013)

You should always write from the heart…then add some porn so it will sell.


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## Guest (May 3, 2014)

vrabinec said:


> I feel sorry for the people who feel compelled to write in a genre or theme they rather wouldn't, simply due to economic or even ego pressures. It must suck to WANT to write some other kind of book, but still sit down and punch out a book they think will sell more than what they wished they could be writing. THAT'S a living hell.


It's not a living hell for me, because I still write the stuff I want to write, I just have multiple wips on the go. So I eat my vegetables (romance) before I can get desert (horror).

Capella: If you're a hating person, there's a lot of people in the world you can hate. Fortunately I'm not a hateful person, but if I was, romance readers would be the last place I'd start, so you're way off. Neither do I have contempt for them, nor am I mocking them. If I have strong feelings about anything, it's that romance readers are the ones who have made it a lot easier for beginning writers to get started, and in many cases, have even changed lives. I suppose there are horror readers doing the same, but it has to be in such a lesser quantity. I've read some stuff on here stating that they haven't fully converted to reading ebooks yet (or indie authors, I guess) so perhaps there is hope for the future.

As far as writing romantic suspense, or the spy type thrillers, I figure, if I'm going to sell out, I might as well go all the way. Then I won't have any regrets when it doesn't pan out. Yeah, with horror, it was all dystopia, zombies etc. And I was geared up for that for a while, then I saw other writers committing to serials like this and bombed. Some took off, sure, but it seemed a lot rarer to find a well written romance serial doing poorly. I think for my name, I want to keep the market out of it, and just create the best stories I can without restriction.

Thanks for your encouragement. Things are tough for me now, but then, I could be much worse off. I'm actually in good spirits and optimistic despite the challenges ahead.

Shelley: Please don't put words in my mouth. If I were seriously saying romance readers are morons around here, I might as well strap on a suicide vest. No, but I did say I don't respect them. Not the same way I respect a reader of my true works. But of course, my respect isn't even a thing, because of course you behave kindly / politely to whoever you deal with. Perhaps I've been too candid about this lol.

Nigel: Don't give up, man. If writing in that genre is something you want to do (for whatever reason) you can do it if you keep trying. One thing I saw before attempting romance, I read some romance for the first time in my life (wondering, can I do this?) and found that 90 percent of what I was reading was just the prose of that particular author, and only ten percent of it was genre. OK - not all of them balanced that way, but romance stories still had so many things in common with other stories you write - characters, dialogue, plot, beginning-middle-end, conflict, climax, resolution. It's not some fantastic secret cooked up in Heisenberg's meth lab. Of course, I don't really know what I'm talking about, but that was my general impression.


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## Carina Wilder (Nov 12, 2013)

Many of you may have seen this already: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zola-books-/how-i-learned-to-stop-being-a-literary-snob_b_5146645.html

Writing is writing. My voice goes into anything I write, at times more successfully than others. Everything I've ever read influences my writing. It's all about creating an escape for a reader, and for some the fulfillment comes from knowing that you're doing so successfully, as well as the act itself. I have no doubt that we all enjoy hearing from a reader who loves what we do, and while I write more for myself than any other person, I like to know that I've made a person smile, laugh, feel.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

TheRo said:


> Many of you may have seen this already: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zola-books-/how-i-learned-to-stop-being-a-literary-snob_b_5146645.html
> 
> Writing is writing. My voice goes into anything I write, at times more successfully than others. Everything I've ever read influences my writing. It's all about creating an escape for a reader, and for some the fulfillment comes from knowing that you're doing so successfully, as well as the act itself. I have no doubt that we all enjoy hearing from a reader who loves what we do, and while I write more for myself than any other person, I like to know that I've made a person smile, laugh, feel.


The truth is that there's literary snobs all over the place, and most people should realize that if they write genre fiction most "artists" do not take them seriously. If you find that attitude foolish, it's probably best to not have that same exact attitude.


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

GaryCecil said:


> So you released twenty books of of which you were not passionate about? You say it's paying you bills (and my all means, do what you have to do), but what kind of message are you sending to your fans? Do you honestly expect them to "jump on board" once you've reached your goal income for the projects you really wanted to write? I'm sorry, but it just sounds like a bad business strategy. I'm glad your making money, that's fantastic, but judging from your words you don't sound too proud, and your writing has become systematic, formulaic. That's a scary place to be. Imagine if you put the effort it took to produce those twenty books into three novels you were EXTREMELY passionate about, lost sleep over, couldn't wait to finish, edit, rinse, repeat.
> 
> Say you write that big hit, in the genre you love... That's great! But your back list is filled with stuff you really didn't want to write but had to write. That doesn't seem like the place you want to be. Business wise.


Nope... that's not what I said. I said I stayed exclusively in romance grudgingly, meaning I wasn't supposed to only write romance. I just got some of my paperback proofs back -- I'm VERY proud of my work. I love writing, and I love my own voice, so whatever I write I enjoy. I still manage to tell stories I myself want to read, even in that genre, and that's down to me putting my own spin on things. Sadly I don't have the ability to write anything formulaic -- if I did, I daresay I'd be making a lot more now. 
My readers seem to like what I give them, which is also another reason why I do this. There are other genres that come more naturally to me than romance, which makes them easier and quicker to write, that's all. Nothing to do with pride. I wouldn't publish anything if I wasn't proud of it. Yep, that goes for my erotica as well.

By the way, I write under multiple pen names, and have absolutely no desire for any of my pen names' fans to read my passion projects.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Briteka said:


> The truth is that there's literary snobs all over the place, and most people should realize that if they write genre fiction most "artists" do not take them seriously. If you find that attitude foolish, it's probably best to not have that same exact attitude.


Starting with not assuming that most artists in scare quotes take such an attitude. Remember that Virginia Woolf's _Orlando_ would nowadays be described as something like historical fantasy and Oscar Wilde wrote Gothic Horror. As someone who is a light so lesser I do not deserve scare quotes, my next fiction project will have a science fiction dystopian plot through which I will explore a radical challenge to the form of the novel. In other words it will look like science fiction, but will be as literary fiction as you can get. My muse is very naughty, she ignores all rules including the rule that muses of literary fiction authors do not inspire their minions to write in genre style. Don't let the bugbears bite.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

This thread irritates the hell out of me. Art is not a dirty word people. And artists are not whatever stereotypes you have in your minds. And looking down your nose on "starving artistes" and "special snowflakes" is just as wrong as literary critics looking down on genre fiction.

I have a job. I like it and that's where my main income comes from. Telling stories is something I love doing and something I would do, even if I wouldn't get paid for it. I tell the stories I want to tell for those who want to read them. Any money I make is just gravy.

I know that no one here cares what I have to say, because I don't sell enough and that's the only thing that matters around here. But at least I don't write stories in genres I hate, just because they sell.


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## Guest (May 3, 2014)

CoraBuhlert said:


> This thread irritates the hell out of me. Art is not a dirty word people. And artists are not whatever stereotypes you have in your minds. And looking down your nose on "starving artistes" and "special snowflakes" is just as wrong as literary critics looking down on genre fiction.


Who are you yelling at? I don't know about anyone else here, but just because I write genre fiction doesn't mean I'm not well read. I read everything, and I've read as much as any "literary snob."

When you're comfortable with yourself and you know who you are, you don't need to "look down" on anyone.


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## Carina Wilder (Nov 12, 2013)

I'm sorry if what I posted (the Huff Post article) gave anyone the impression that I look down on artists, or what I said. Not at all. I come from a long line of, literally, artists. I think it's the greatest thing in the world to be creative. It's as important to this world to have beautiful art, music and words as to have medicine. And far, far more important than money.

At any rate, if I personally caused offense, I apologize. My intention was to state that there is creativity in writing in many genres, and beauty to be found everywhere.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Briteka said:


> Just to be clear, this was broken off from another thread where we were discussing publishing romantic serials, and I was giving popular niches within that genre.


Thanks. That makes more sense. I missed that part.

I agree that sometimes changing sub-categories within a genre can make sense. Once I publish one more Historical biography, I am switching historical subcategories myself.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

ShaneJeffery said:


> Capella: If you're a hating person, there's a lot of people in the world you can hate. Fortunately I'm not a hateful person, but if I was, romance readers would be the last place I'd start, so you're way off. Neither do I have contempt for them, nor am I mocking them. If I have strong feelings about anything, it's that romance readers are the ones who have made it a lot easier for beginning writers to get started, and in many cases, have even changed lives.


But you do have contempt for them, and you are mocking them. Do you really not see it? I'm genuinely asking. Do you really not see the contempt and mockery in the things you've said about your romance readers in this thread? The above is a huge backtrack.



> Shelley: Please don't put words in my mouth. If I were seriously saying romance readers are morons around here, I might as well strap on a suicide vest. No, but I did say I don't respect them. Not the same way I respect a reader of my true works. But of course, my respect isn't even a thing, because of course you behave kindly / politely to whoever you deal with. Perhaps I've been too candid about this lol.


I'm really not putting words in your mouth. You didn't come out and say they're stupid, but you heavily implied it in the other things you said about them. You have no respect for the women reading your romances, because you write them without giving a crap, don't even reread or bother to fix errors, and they tell you you're a great writer. You even likened what you're doing to a slap in their faces. I didn't have to put words in your mouth--I just said plainly what you've been implying. I'm plainly boggled you said it in public, but I guess this type of thing shouldn't really surprise me anymore.

Who are your real readers that you respect? Please break down the demographic.

@Cora, I'm pretty sure several people in this thread including me have said we don't care if writers don't want to write to market. Each person has his or her own reason for writing, and each one is perfectly fine. But there's a lot of judging on the other side, even going so far to call it stupid or question the writers' morals, in the opposite direction. Writing to market is stupid and morally wonky, somehow. How does that get turned around into something that makes you angry?


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## JeanetteRaleigh (Jan 1, 2013)

First of all there are TONS of markets doing well, so if you have the cover, the writing skills, and editing skills in place, presumably you should be able to write from the heart AND find a place in the market at the same time.  But it really does help to research the best seller lists, even if only to figure out how your book fits into the grand scheme of things and to look at what other people are doing

Also, if something isn't working, experiment and try new things.  New covers, different keywords, different blurbs, promotions.  Moon Struck was published for three years making next to nothing.  I expanded the story, changed the cover, changed the title, changed keywords and researched what the top people in the market were doing.  It's the same premise, still the work I loved when I started, but now I'm gaining an audience, so just because you're not selling doesn't mean that what you're writing is bad or unmarketable.  You might just need a bit of tweaking here and there. 

And I can tell you, my heart has been doing a LOT better now that people have found my books and started reading them...


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## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

I love money! 

I've been really poor in the past (welfare mom poor) and let me tell you, making money while staying home with my second kid, doing something I love, is absolutely amazing! If I hadn't been doing market research and learning new things, so I could make more money, I never would have found out how much I love romance. I love new adult romance in particular. I love what it allows me to write about. I love the angst and the subject matter I can explore in this super popular genre. Maybe I'm lucky, but I love this stuff. 

I also love paranormal romance. I love that I can use all my nerd love to write in a genre that sells. 

You know the best thing about romance? All the gooey sticky feelings. I love exploring the male/female relationship; cuz like, I've had some, and they've been a big deal for me.   

If I hadn't been "selling out" I'd never have learned how much I love romance. Thanks money, you expanded my horizons.   

I feel sorry for the people who write romance and don't like it. But I get it. When I started trying to write erotica, I was kind of in that position of not "respecting" the readers, but that was because I was clueless. I suggest reading more deeply and finding how meaningful romances can be. They are. They are extremely moving if done well. Good luck.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Annabelle said:


> I love money!
> 
> I've been really poor in the past (welfare mom poor) and let me tell you, making money while staying home with my second kid, doing something I love, is absolutely amazing! If I hadn't been doing market research and learning new things, so I could make more money, I never would have found out how much I love romance. I love new adult romance in particular. I love what it allows me to write about. I love the angst and the subject matter I can explore in this super popular genre. Maybe I'm lucky, but I love this stuff.
> 
> ...


This is such a good post. I love romance because it gives me the opportunity to explore all kinds of love, not just romantic love. Parents and children, siblings, friends, love of country and of place--even the love of what you do for a living. All kinds of relationships, in all their permutations. It allows me to dip into people's lives at those crossroads moments, when they're making the big changes, as scary as that is. All sorts of big changes, because I think we tend to commit to a life partner at a point in our lives when other things are also happening, other things that are interesting to explore.

If somebody's writing it and it feels "stupid," maybe that's because it isn't coming from a place of genuine emotion. I know my books do best when I feel the emotion myself, writing them. If it makes my skin tingle (and I'm not talking about from the sexyfeels)--those are the passages that get highlighted. Writing something that moves somebody is a great feeling. And really, even though I have no pretensions to artistic greatness, I think my genre is as capable as any other (perhaps more capable) of moving people, of making them think. IF I do it right. That's my job, and my challenge.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> I think it's fine to analyze the market and find out "What's Selling NOW!" I have no problem with that at all. But to my mind, it's a step down from the people who create the original works that set the trend running.


How are those steps ordered?

I would order them according to aggregate social benefit. That is the sum of the benefit received by all consumers of the book.

So, both trend runners and marketers would generate aggregate benefit. Some trend runner books would do very well, and some would do very poorly. Same with marketers.

That would put a mix of both trend runners and marketers on each step.


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## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

Rosalind James said:


> This is such a good post. I love romance because it gives me the opportunity to explore all kinds of love, not just romantic love. Parents and children, siblings, friends, love of country and of place--even the love of what you do for a living. All kinds of relationships, in all their permutations.


That is a very good point Rasalind. Thank you for bringing that up. Exploring love relationships is extremely satisfying. The psychology of people's responses is fascinating. And like you said, it isn't just romantic love, it's all kinds of love. My last book really looked at the relationship of three sisters and the dynamics of their relationships while the central romance blossomed. Human relationships and human emotions are endlessly fascinating!


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

I perform Acts of Creation with the intent to entertain and inspire. It's nice to get paid for it, but it's not the point.


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## jamielakenovels (Jan 14, 2014)

Briteka said:


> We were never discussing how to "write from your heart". We were discussing how to increase sales. My advice is very good for people that would like to sell well. It's probably not so good for people that want to be a "fulfilled" starving artists.


I think you can do both. Choose a genre that sells and a story you are passionate about but write it in a way your market wants and they'll buy it. You can always write quiet stories that you're passionate about that you know there's no market for once people know who you are. When you read the Top 10 Forbes Most Highly Paid Authors every year, they always say they write for their audience which as Nicholas Sparks says "May or may not be what you want to write."

I'm not trying to win any Pulitzer with my books, just write what my particular audience wants.

If that's not important to you and you don't care if you sell at all, then that won't matter to you.


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## dgrant (Feb 5, 2014)

Strange and Silly Stereotypes. 

1: If you're writing something that's popular, it can't be from the heart. 
2: if you're writing something that's not completely from the heart and free of market positioning, it's morally bad. Like all commercial graphic artists, copyeditors, reporters, actors taking bit parts and bad parts, ghost writing, technical writers, movie novellizations, or media tie-in fiction (unless you really love the fandom). 
3: If you're not writing a book of the heart, it will always be in a genre you hate, and pure hell to write.
4: If it's not a book of the heart, the end result is always utter dreck. 
5: If you're cheerfully giving advice about making sales by market positioning, you're not writing books of the heart. 
6: If you debate any of the above, you're making fun of artists. And what you do isn't "art".

Did I miss anything?

A few notes:

1. It's good to be aware of the strength and limitations of your genre / subgenre's commercial viability

2. It's good to love what you do.

3. It is possible to take what you do and apply that passion, skill, and ingenuity to something that isn't your first inclination.

4. If you know what the market already wants and you write for it, and it is something to which you apply your passion, skill, and ingenuity, it is more likely to be commercially successful than something you'd have to work to create a demand for.

5. It is entirely possible to turn out highly skilled work in a genre or a particular story/series/serial that you don't care for/no longer care for, and have the readers love it anyway. It's _much better_ to find an overlap between what you love and what the audience loves.

6. _Some stories are going to want to be written, no matter whether they're commercially viable or not. _

7. Some people are always going to get their feelings hurt, especially on the internet where words are faceless and can be assumed to have intents not originally meant. Discussing the art/hack divide, which is fraught with people's sense of pride in themselves and in their work, is always ripe for strife.

8. I'm pretty sure nobody logged on kboards today and cracked their knuckles, declaring "Oh, boy! Today I'm going to hurt feelings and be a meanie!"

9. If you honestly do not care about the commercial viability of your fiction, then you have the _utter luxury_ of only writing the stories that interest you. While you can benefit from the advice of people who are trying to make a living at writing, you are neither the intended recipient, nor beholden to its strictures. _Enjoy_ the fact that you can do whatever you want to do, and never worry about if it'll bring in enough to pay the rent. It's a much less stressful way to live than being angry at people who are in a different situation.

10. Just because someone doesn't rely on the income from their fiction doesn't mean they're doing it wrong. Just because they don't plan to rely on their income at any point doesn't mean they're doing it wrong. It just means their advice might not be right for you, in your situation, at this time. Enjoy the fact that we can all come together and talk about the business and the craft of writing here! It's a much less stressful way to live than being angry at people in a different situation!

tl;dr - the answer to the thread title is: both. Unlike you're writing for just the joy of it, in which case, heart.


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## Jan Strnad (May 27, 2010)

Terrence OBrien said:


> How are those steps ordered?
> 
> I would order them according to aggregate social benefit. That is the sum of the benefit received by all consumers of the book.
> 
> ...


What I mean is, the person... let's say Anne Rice... who starts a trend toward romantic, troubled vampires (_Interview with the Vampire_) or J. K. Rowling with dark fantasy for the YA audience, or Suzanne Collins with dystopian future for YA readers, or (in other media) John Carpenter with supernatural serial killer movies ("dead teenager" movies as Ebert called them), Ed Romero with zombie movies, George Lucas with space opera, etc. -- nobody was asking for these books and movies. Most of them barely got published/produced at first. But the audience responded to them and made them enormously successful.

They all spawned works that followed the market. And that's fine. But the real acclaim and money went to those who first produced something original, something that the audience didn't think to ask for because... well... they're consumers, not creators.

It's fine to follow the market, but the big reward is going to go to those who create the market. And that means creating work that speaks to you, the writer, and letting the audience discover it and learn that it speaks to them as well.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Jan Strnad said:


> What I mean is, the person... let's say Anne Rice... who starts a trend toward romantic, troubled vampires (_Interview with the Vampire_) or J. K. Rowling with dark fantasy for the YA audience, or Suzanne Collins with dystopian future for YA readers, or (in other media) John Carpenter with supernatural serial killer movies ("dead teenager" movies as Ebert called them), Ed Romero with zombie movies, George Lucas with space opera, etc. -- nobody was asking for these books and movies. Most of them barely got published/produced at first. But the audience responded to them and made them enormously successful.
> 
> They all spawned works that followed the market. And that's fine. But the real acclaim and money went to those who first produced something original, something that the audience didn't think to ask for because... well... they're consumers, not creators.
> 
> It's fine to follow the market, but the big reward is going to go to those who create the market. And that means creating work that speaks to you, the writer, and letting the audience discover it and learn that it speaks to them as well.


I disagree with some of your examples. Several of them are complete ripoffs of prior works. So it's not like audiences were served something unique that they could never find before. This wasn't the key to their success.

But even if it was, which are we most likely to see happen? Make money writing popular things or make money being billion dollar trendsetters?


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Annabelle said:


> I love money!
> 
> I've been really poor in the past (welfare mom poor) and let me tell you, making money while staying home with my second kid, doing something I love, is absolutely amazing! If I hadn't been doing market research and learning new things, so I could make more money, I never would have found out how much I love romance. I love new adult romance in particular. I love what it allows me to write about. I love the angst and the subject matter I can explore in this super popular genre. Maybe I'm lucky, but I love this stuff.
> 
> ...


Or maybe they just don't like the genre. We are allowed not to like some genre.

I dont like romance. I know very intelligent people who do like it, including my daughter. But I find a story that is about nothing but boy finds girl, boy loses girl, etc just boring. That is my right as a reader. That we just aren't looking deeply enough if we don't like it is a tad insulting although I'm sure you didn't mean it to be.

It's great that you're writing a genre you love. That doesn't mean it's for everyone.

ETA: Nothing at all wrong with loving money.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> It's fine to follow the market, but the big reward is going to go to those who create the market. And that means creating work that speaks to you, the writer, and letting the audience discover it and learn that it speaks to them as well.


For what you describe, it's sufficient for consumers to learn it speaks to them. It isn't necessary that it speaks to the author.


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## I&#039;m a Little Teapot (Apr 10, 2014)

Joliedupre said:


> What a lovely thing to say, and I wish more people felt the way you do. (Authors love to pass judgement on other authors.)
> 
> However, if people choose to call me a hack, that's fine. I've been called worse. LOL!
> 
> P.S. I love your doggy avatar!


Thanks! 

We humans do so love to judge our peers. Me, I just want everyone to get along and save the conflict and drama for their stories.


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## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

JRTomlin said:


> Or maybe they just don't like the genre. We are allowed not to like some genre.
> 
> I dont like romance. I know very intelligent people who do like it, including my daughter. But I find a story that is about nothing but boy finds girl, boy loses girl, etc just boring. That is my right as a reader. That we just aren't looking deeply enough if we don't like it is a tad insulting although I'm sure you didn't mean it to be.
> 
> ...


I just meant to be encouraging since a previous poster said he was making money in romance but hated it. Human relationships are generally important to people so if he can find the right genre of romance he might like it more. I also used to think romance was stupid, but then I started reading a lot of it and realized I love it. Who knew? I used to only be an sff, lit, and non fiction reader. I never read a romance in my life until about nine months ago. I only meant my comment as an encouragement for someone who was already writing the genre, so he could find a way to enjoy the work more. Maybe he can't. I don't know. I just thought I'd offer him some empathy and my humble guidance. lol. Whatever that is worth.  I just want people to be happy.


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## Jan Strnad (May 27, 2010)

Terrence OBrien said:


> For what you describe, it's sufficient for consumers to learn it speaks to them. It isn't necessary that it speaks to the author.


Well, actually, it isn't. The creator could be doing something strictly for the money, and then they get lucky. Authors have even been trapped by their success. A Conan Doyle got sick of Sherlock, MacDonald tired of Travis McGee. Fans didn't.

My only point is that, yes, a writer can follow trends and markets and maybe even make a good living... maybe make an outstanding living doing so, I don't know. It's a perfectly valid way to approach one's writing career.

But there's a special place for people like... okay, let me go back to my comic book days. Believe me, absolutely nobody... no frigging body... was hanging around in 1984 saying, "What I want is a funny animal comic book starring ninja turtles." Nobody. But Eastman and Laird did their own thing, published their own little black-and-white comic book, _Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles_, and founded an empire.

How many people remember the market-following _Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters_? Anybody? Bueller?

So, when V. M. Black says:



> Right now, on my hard drive, I have 300 pages of a 1600s-set literary fiction romance (a romance in the 1800s sense more than the genre sense) written in a nonlinear fashion with interweaving themes much like Joseph Conrad's Nostromo. It covers, among other things, the 1619 arrival of the ship of women in Jamestown and the 1622 massacre. It also includes battery, a stillbirth, the death of a husband, and a child almost dying from a snakebite.
> 
> I love it. It's lyrical and beautiful--and my critique partners went crazy for it, more than any other book I've ever written. I had one who said she dreamed about the book, repeatedly, it haunted her so much.
> 
> It's not finished for a reason. There is no ready market for this book.


... it breaks my heart. She's written 300 pages of a novel she loves, that other people have praised, that sounds like absolute dynamite, but she isn't going to finish it because "nobody is asking for it." Because she doesn't perceive a market.

I'm not kidding... that nearly brings me to tears.

She might be right. It could launch like a lead balloon. But it could also be huge. Who knows? Nobody knows, and nobody will ever know, because she's already decided "there's no market."

Again... sure... write for the market. Of course. But if something really moves you, you've got to make time for it. It's just too sad not to.


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## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

Jan Strnad said:


> V. M., I think I understand your point, that these were not 100% original ideas. But in both cases, there was an original component that absolutely no one was asking for. The audience didn't know they'd like either of these properties until they came along, and in fact, the Harry Potter books came close to not getting published (and then earned a very modest advance), and Seinfeld was nearly dropped after the first screening.


Again, I think you're unfamiliar with the YA fantasy market to believe that there was anything groundbreaking about the HP concept. I've read enough in the genre to fill rooms--there was nothing that was really fresh about the first book IF you're very familiar with the genre. People who felt it was amazing thought it was because it gained that critical mass that got so many people unfamiliar with the genre reading in it.

I'm not saying the first one isn't a great, fun book. But it took off because of a lightning strike, not because it was something new. Thousands of books that are more original and better written in the same genre have never, ever seen sales like that.

Don't gamble your life waiting for that lightning strike. It's like pointing to lottery winner and going, "See! You should totally buy a ticket!"

Also, I'm HAPPY with what I'm writing now. I was MISERABLE writing with my publishing house, but that's because they took a hatchet to my books and made them both less coherent and less marketable. But I love what I write now, make no mistake!

I'll tell ya what. Just to show you how futile it is, if I get 6 months ahead across the board, I'll use my extra time to make the early colonial book everything I want it to be. And I'll give it a great cover. And I'll even post here, so all the people who like the idea can buy it and boost it if they want. And I'll do all the marketing stuff I do with my other books. And it will go ppppptttthhhhhffffff. LOL. M'kay? It should only take me about 100 hours to get it how I want it to be at this point, anyway.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> Well, actually, it isn't. The creator could be doing something strictly for the money, and then they get lucky. Authors have even been trapped by their success. A Conan Doyle got sick of Sherlock, MacDonald tired of Travis McGee. Fans didn't.


Im not sure how we can decide on the internal mindset necessary for those who create the market. That market might be created by an author who writes something that speaks to him, moves him, or is written for money. The reaction of consumers is what determines if he creates a new market, not his internal emotional state.

Its quite possible for someone to write to what they think will sell rather than what has already sold. When they succeed they create that market. Their focus is on what they think the market will embrace next year rather than this year. These are risk takers, just like we see in lots of other endeavors.

In this case, the author is writing to the market, where the market is millions of consumers rather then other books that have sold.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

The below is a repeat of a post I wrote back in January, because on reading all these responses, I found I wanted to say all this again, but I already said it once and I'm too lazy to write it all again (plus I'm supposed to be writing a book). So here it is. It's long, and I don't usually go on & on, so if you don't want to read it, well, I'll never know!

******

Here I am, supposed to be doing something else, responding again, because this thing is stuck in my head and I need to write it out, because it's actually something I feel pretty passionately about.

I think there's a tyranny that comes with sales. Your readers are asking for the next book in the series. You know that book would sell. And yet . . . there's another book in your head that you want to write.

This happened to me. I'd written four New Zealand books, and my sales had JUST taken off, big-time. Everybody wanted a new NZ book. But I had this idea. Was it a marketable idea? Not really (other than being contemporary romance). It was a WACKY idea. It was only half-romance, and everyone knows that these days, contemp romance needs to be JUST romance, right? And my idea was to write a book about a reality show, with all sorts of characters--a book about a historical reenactment show, so I could do some history in there, too. About homesteading in the West, which I have some family background in, in the spot where I grew up.

I did it. It was SO FUN to write. (Not that any of my books are exactly chores to write, but this one was FUN.) I got to interview elderly family and friends, and get help from my handsome bull-rider nephew about building fence and throwing an axe and all sorts of cool stuff. I got to write about the whole cast of characters, and my twin-brother characters, both of whom I adored. I got to write a woman in an emotionally abusive relationship, getting distance and recognizing it for what it was and turning on her abuser. It was awesome.

I released it, and yeah, it fell with a dull thud. First in a series, nothing like my other books. Whaaaat? It sat there selling 500 copies a month for . . . oh, six months. Meanwhile I went back to NZ and wrote another NZ book, and yeah, it sold a whole heck of a lot more and I had a great couple months.

So did I write another NZ book? No! I wrote the twin brother's book. Again, I LOVED writing the book. Plus, no expectations! I knew it wouldn't sell.

But . . . it did. I released it and it got to #600 right off the bat. And then, guess what? I did a promo on that redheaded stepchild Book 1, and . . . WOW! I gave away 86,000 copies in 5 days and it got to #1 in the Free store, and then it took a bounce and stayed around #1000 at regular price for a month. And Book 2 got to #225.

And I thought, again, OK, I'll write another NZ book. But I didn't! I wrote Book 3 in the other series instead. It's due to come out in a week or so, and my beta readers say it's my best book so far. I sure hope so! I've learned a whole lot and grown and stretched writing this very different series.

OK, if you've read this far, here's the kicker. It was after that promo on Book 1 of the new series that these things happened:

1) I got "the call" from KDP offering to do wonderful things for me, including allowing the new book to be pre-ordered, and . . . a whole lot of other things.

2) I got a call from an editor at Montlake asking me to consider submitting my next series to them.

My point is: I know at least one of these things happened because I showed that I could write more than one kind of book and sell it successfully. The Montlake editor said as much. She liked my U.S.-based books with some suspense. She said, that's the kind of thing we'd like.

I wrote something different because I didn't want to be trapped by success. I didn't want to be stuck in a box. Sooner or later, my readers were going to get bored, or I was. (Now, I AM planning to write another NZ book. Because now, I want to. Because now, I'm not stuck in a box. I've learned, and I've grown.)

Your readers only know what you've done before. They don't know what they'll want NEXT from you, because you haven't written it yet. Your very best-selling book could be the one you're going to write next. You know, the different one. The risky one.

Time for the Helen Keller quote again: "Life is either a daring adventure, or it is nothing at all." For me, I write out of a burning need to express myself, to tell my stories. This is my one and only life. I've got to this point via a whole lot of suffering, a whole lot of pain, and I need the rest of my life to mean something, or all that suffering and pain was for nothing. I NEED to spend the rest of my life doing what I love and passionately want to do. Whatever story that is, whatever direction it takes me. I have a bunch of fabulous Mexican folk art carved animals on my desk reminding me of that: *to take risks.* I am a seriously risk-averse person, but I take risks in my writing, and I try to celebrate those risks afterwards, however scary they felt at the time. The risks are what have helped me grow and improve, and what my readers respond to. It's a huge theme in my books--stepping out of your comfort zone, trusting and loving and changing.

So, anyway. That's a screed. And, again, I've written it for myself--and for anybody else who wants to read it.


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## Guest (May 4, 2014)

Dearest Elizabeth,

You wrote, "I think it's the agents and editors who get 'genre fatigue' rather than the readers."

*BINGO!*

You also wrote, "I highly doubt the reader cares about the writer's motivations in writing the book (art or money). People just want to be entertained, inspired, distracted, empowered, taught, etc."

*BINGO!*

Off to follow you on Twitter, Facebook and Goodreads now. I'll look for your announcement of your zombie book when you finish it. I'd love to read it!

Jolie


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## Guest (May 4, 2014)

Rosalind James said:


> The below is a repeat of a post I wrote back in January, because on reading all these responses, I found I wanted to say all this again, but I already said it once and I'm too lazy to write it all again (plus I'm supposed to be writing a book). So here it is. It's long, and I don't usually go on & on, so if you don't want to read it, well, I'll never know!


Rosalind, I think your post is great. Congrats on the success!

Everything I want to write will be about monsters, whether they be zombies, vampires, werewolves or whatever. Since I love monsters, there will be no chance of me writing something I don't love, and since there are other people out there who love monsters, I'll be writing for them. So I'm not worried about an audience. I'll find my audience for whatever I write.


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## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

Not to pick on you, Rosalind, but your example of "not marketable" was a book in THE MOST POPULAR GENRE, PERIOD, with a high concept, that was the first book in the series.  And the level of sales that you considered floundering was pretty darned solid for the first book in a new series if you don't have a fan base that jumps easily from book to book.

That would be like me saying, "Well, my fans wanted more vampires, but I had this witch romance that was just begging to be told."

I'm putting out my first unmarketable short story in seven weeks.  It will hit the ground with a thud, but it is in a space where there is a new, if not large, audience for me, so I hope it will bring more people into my world, because it sure as heck isn't going to sell particularly well!  These are my palate cleanser stories--stuff I do that keeps my main writing feeling fresh.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

dgrant said:


> Strange and Silly Stereotypes.
> 
> 1: If you're writing something that's popular, it can't be from the heart.
> 2: if you're writing something that's not completely from the heart and free of market positioning, it's morally bad. Like all commercial graphic artists, copyeditors, reporters, actors taking bit parts and bad parts, ghost writing, technical writers, movie novellizations, or media tie-in fiction (unless you really love the fandom).
> ...


Oh, yes&#8230; and I know you addressed some of those in the part I snipped. I just want to present them in the same format you did. 

a: If you're not writing something that's popular, you're stupid, ignorant, lazy, naive or some or all of the above.
b: If you're not writing something that's popular, you're disrespecting, if not insulting, readers.
c: If you're not writing something that takes marketing positioning into account, you must be one of those arty-farty types with a death wish (preferably through starvation).
d: If you totally ignore the market's wishes and only write to please yourself, you probably also think that correct use of grammar and a good cover are just idle concerns of non-artists and other hack writers. But, hey, as long as _you_'re pleased with your work&#8230;
d: If you debate any of the above, you're making fun of hardworking writers who want to please their readers - their _customers_ for crying out loud - and who have kids to put through college, mortgages to pay, a spendthrift spouse, and their poor, sick mother to support.

Nah&#8230;

I have no quarrel with, and in fact I admire writers who can go out, study the market, pick a successful genre, learn how it's done and write a book that pleases readers and sells oodles. And who have a lot of fun doing it.
I don't know if I could do it, but tbh, I haven't tried yet, and maybe I never will.

Meanwhile, what I slightly deplore is the lack of marketing advice for writers who write the stories they feel need to be told. Most of the marketing advice presupposes that you write to market, and most of the advice on offer follows from that initial stance.
However, a lot of the classic avenues, like BoobBub, to mention only one, are closed to us. So there we are. We've lived in a daze, in our own little world, writing our book, carefully coloring outside the lines and thinking outside the box, and right after we write "The End," we awake and think, "Would anyone else be interested in this stuff?" The most obvious answer is, "Find your readership."
Yeah. And how do we do that? Practically speaking?


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## Weirdling (Jun 25, 2011)

Joliedupre said:


> Dearest Elizabeth,
> 
> (snip)
> You also wrote, "I highly doubt the reader cares about the writer's motivations in writing the book (art or money). People just want to be entertained, inspired, distracted, empowered, taught, etc."


The readers don't care as long as they believe their own imaginary stories about the author. But if some fact comes out that takes the shine off that author that changes things (for some readers). For example, I always admired Dickens, until I read something about how horribly he treated his wife. I like the Aubrey-Maturin books and felt warmth toward this author because of them (I thought him a genius), but I started reading a little about the author, and it took away some of my passion. I'm not as eager to pick up that book I got stuck on because of that.

If you write to the market and do it without passion for the genre, I'd suggest not making that widely known. Let the readers believe you love the genre and work as much as they do, and you will likely do better and have happier readers.

Jodi

ETA: Ooops, some errors corrected.


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## Guest (May 4, 2014)

Andrew Ashling said:


> "Would anyone else be interested in this stuff?" The most obvious answer is, "Find your readership."
> Yeah. And how do we do that? Practically speaking?


What have I done to find my monster readers?

1. I started a monster blog for monster lovers that focuses on monsters. I publish blog posts with the appropriate key words so that monster lovers can find my posts on Google. (They do, and they have.)

2. I started a Facebook fan page devoted to horror and monster lovers and I post daily and regularly.

3. I seek out monster lovers on Twitter with the assistance of services such as Tweetpi. http://tweepi.com/

4. I do contests for monster lovers.

5. I've also put a major focus on my mailing list, posting the link whereever I can. I intend to continue to focus on my mailing list to find my readers once my books are out.

That's just some of what I've done to find my readers. (My upcoming series has a zombie theme. So zombies are mainly all I talk about these days. I'll throw in some other monsters, but these days I'm all about the zombie.)


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## Guest (May 4, 2014)

Jodi said:


> The authors don't care as long as they believe their own imaginary stories about the author. But if some fact comes out that takes the shine off that author that changes things (for some readers). For example, I always admired Dickens, until I read something about how horribly he treated his wife. I like the Aubrey-Maturin books and felt warmth toward this author because of them (I thought him a genius), but I started reading a little about the author, and it took away some of my passion. I'm not as eager to pick up that book I got stuck on because of that.


Yes, that's the case for _some_ readers.

Woody Allen married is stepdaughter. I'm not big on Woody Allen as a person, but I love his movies. "Blue Jasmine," for example, is one of the best movies I've ever seen.


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## Susanne O (Feb 8, 2010)

> If somebody's writing it and it feels "stupid," maybe that's because it isn't coming from a place of genuine emotion. I know my books do best when I feel the emotion myself, writing them. If it makes my skin tingle (and I'm not talking about from the sexyfeels)--those are the passages that get highlighted. Writing something that moves somebody is a great feeling. And really, even though I have no pretensions to artistic greatness, I think my genre is as capable as any other (perhaps more capable) of moving people, of making them think. IF I do it right. That's my job, and my challenge.


Perfect. Thank you, Rosalind. This is exactly how and why I write.

I would not, could not write from any other place than my heart. I use my emotions, my daydreams, my feelings of happiness and sorrow. I have lived and loved and cried and laughed. I draw on all of that for my books.

I respect and appreciate my readers and every time someone says they've enjoyed one of my books or that it made them laugh or cry, I know I've touched someone out there and maybe taken them on a little journey for a short while that they found enjoyable. If that is two people or two thousand has no importance. Every sale and every comment brings me equal joy.


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## Weirdling (Jun 25, 2011)

Joliedupre said:


> Yes, that's the case for _some_ readers.
> 
> Woody Allen married is stepdaughter. I'm not big on Woody Allen as a person, but I love his movies. "Blue Jasmine," for example, is one of the best movies I've ever seen.


Right. I even overcame it with Georgette Heyer, whom I believe did not really like her Regency romances as much as her other works. At some point in reading or talking about her in reader groups, I got the impression GH looked down on those books a little. But for some reason, either because I also read she liked those characters she created, or because I love her Regencies so much, or both, I still really love those stories.

I believe unconsciously readers create a halo effect concerning their favorite books and authors. If they love the book, they think or want to think good things about the author. I think it has some impact to have to snip off that halo, but sometimes, your love for a work can outweigh it.

I really like the movies inspired by A Christmas Carol. I finally read the book. But even so, my immersion was never deep in that story. Why? Because that knowledge of how horrible the "family author" was to his family stuck with me, like a ghost that couldn't be banished.

So my suggestion is not to skate by on numbers, for I think the negative things the author says about his own genre, audience, and works have an impact, nonexistent in some readers, small in some, but large in others. Basically, I don't think we should assume it is nonexistent or small in most readers--besides, why would you want to vent publicly in this way anyway? What does it gain you? And how much more does it cost you?

ETA: I mean it's not that hard, or shouldn't be that hard, to find something you like about the genre or works. You might say, "I write these stories to pay the bills, but I love how I put my character through the wringer." Such an easy way to connect with the readers in an honest way but also to improve your own attitude toward your own works.

Jodi


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## Guest (May 4, 2014)

Jodi said:


> Right. I even overcame it with Georgette Heyer, whom I believe did not really like her Regency romances as much as her other works. At some point in reading or talking about her in reader groups, I got the impression GH looked down on those books a little. But for some reason, either because I also read she liked those characters she created, or because I love her Regencies so much, or both, I still really love those stories.
> 
> I believe unconsciously readers create a halo effect concerning their favorite books and authors. If they love the book, they think or want to think good things about the author. I think it has some impact to have to snip off that halo, but sometimes, your love for a work can outweigh it.
> 
> ...


As an article writer, I often write topics I hate just for the money. (I once wrote 50 _different_ articles on garages and garage door openers. True story. ) However, I could never write and publish fiction I hated or didn't respect.

Will there be people who hate and/or not respect what I write? Of course. But I'm not writing for them. I'm writing for myself and for my readers.


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## Weirdling (Jun 25, 2011)

Joliedupre said:


> As an article writer, I often write topics I hate just for the money. (I once wrote 50 _different_ articles on garages and garage door openers. True story. ) However, I could never write and publish fiction I hated or didn't respect.
> 
> Will there be people who hate and/or not respect what I write? Of course. But I'm not writing for them. I'm writing for myself and for my readers.


My point isn't against doing what you (general you, not specific you) hate for money. My point is don't share that fact with the readers. Or soften the blow somehow. Why would you want to tell your audience you hate what they love? What do you gain by it?

Jodi


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## Guest (May 4, 2014)

Jodi said:


> My point isn't against doing what you (general you, not specific you) hate for money. My point is don't share that fact with the readers. Or soften the blow somehow. Why would you want to tell your audience you hate what they love? What do you gain by it?
> 
> Jodi


Yep, I agree.


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

> a: If you're not writing something that's popular, you're stupid, ignorant, lazy, naive or some or all of the above.
> b: If you're not writing something that's popular, you're disrespecting, if not insulting, readers.
> c: If you're not writing something that takes marketing positioning into account, you must be one of those arty-farty types with a death wish (preferably through starvation).
> d: If you totally ignore the market's wishes and only write to please yourself, you probably also think that correct use of grammar and a good cover are just idle concerns of non-artists and other hack writers. But, hey, as long as you're pleased with your work...
> ...


I wasn't going to even post on this thread because I'm so tired of exactly what Andrew mentions here. I'm somewhere in the middle. I do get accepted by Bookbub, I have also branched out now into thrillers...but only because the story screamed to get out. Some of us have stories that eat our guts out until we write them. It doesn't matter what genre they are. It doesn't mean we don't have a clue about business or marketing. I was successful for 20 years in advertising, so please don't assume only people who write what's currently popular have a clue. I prefer to read stories that make me deeply think and feel. That is what I am driven to write. I'm not saying popular genres don't have ANY of that, but there is a difference between layers of meaning and immediate action/emotion. One isn't better than the other. It's just different, like people are.

I want to find a way to make a living writing, but I don't want to sit and pound on a keyboard simply to please other people. If I wanted a job that made me feel empty I'd go back into advertising. I made a lot of money there. And please note: I'm NOT saying other authors should or do feel this way if they write in certain genres. If they enjoy it, fabulous! We all like different stuff. I'm also open-minded enough to try to find a way to write stories in genres that are more popular than what my personal reading preferences are. I have a story I'm doing right now that screamed to get out. It's a psychological thriller. Thrillers are more popular. I have a couple of ideas for romances that are different. I don't read a lot of romance, because I don't like knowing it will have a certain ending. However, I have read a few I loved. I may write them because I feel they add something a little unusual to the genre, but will still follow the formula. Or maybe I won't. Maybe something else will start eating at my gut. I'm even writing hard core erotica (and that's a compliment to call it erotica. I know what it really is.) under a pen name to try to generate more money. I can write them short and charge more for a short in that genre. So I do it because being bored for a short amount of time is more acceptable to me than being bored for a long period of time writing 100,000 word novels. Others may find it more acceptable to be bored longer but not write smut. I do use pen name for that. Not because I don't want people to know I write it. I willingly say I do. But because it isn't something I love doing and I don't want the readers to know that. Also, I don't need religious zealots OR perverts trying to contact me.

I'm a pantster and a gut writer. You can't stop that. If you don't happen to be, please don't denigrate those who are. I'm not special. I AM an artist, although why that seems to be a negative to many of you, and you sneer "arty", I don't know. I won't ever deny that I'm an artist, just like someone shouldn't deny anything they are. I also paint. Whether being an artist is a blessing or a curse is questionable. Hell, Gastien tore at my guts until it was done. I didn't even set out to write historical fiction, now did I realize it was until the first book was done. I researched it to death because I wanted the book's setting to be authentic. I didn't even read historical. I thought historical was all dry and boring. Now it's one of my favorites to read. Talk about drama, sex, and violence! But the story of a peasant who struggles for power and to become a artist didn't just speak to me. It screamed at me. As did (and does) the struggle for power and class abuse and struggle.

As far as finding an audience, Joliedupre listed some of the ways to do it, but it takes a LONG time. That's what people who don't write for popular genres have to realize. It takes time, and most of all, it takes a HUGE belief in yourself and your stories.

And it doesn't hurt to try more popular genres and put a new spin on them--but for goodness sake, if you have stories eating at you, write them. Please. Find time to do both if you must, but write them. THAT is how the next big thing happens. There is nothing wrong with hoping to be the next breakout. There's nothing wrong with "buying that lottery ticket".

What some writers here have to realize is that their way isn't the only professional way or right way. There IS a way to make a living not writing the most popular, or at least not ONLY writing the most popular, but it's a longer path. It doesn't help the journey when other writers verbally accost the people traveling it. Then again, if a writer is traveling the tough road, they are already used to it not being easy, so why be kind and make it any more pleasant for them? It so much more fun to feel superior. (And, again, that isn't everyone, or even most on here, but there are a few who clearly feel they are).


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## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

Every single story I write now is itching to get out.  Every.  Single.  One.  If I don't love it, I don't write it.  It's that simple.  

I love my stories for different reasons, though, and if I can love something that will sell and also love something that likely won't sell, I will choose the one that will sell.  

I'm also dying to write a historical fiction novel from the point of view of all the women around Constantine's life.  I have a big hunk of a novel about Ankhesenpaaten, too.  And I have this insane Roman-esque-set fantasy told from the point of view of a slave-prostitute who taps into magic and brings down the empire.  There's also the parallel universe fantasy, where a woman's dreams are being used as a conduit for the forces of evil to get into this universe through the novels she's compelled to write and also the neat little YA fantasy that's about the nature of evil and how even the worst people are the heroes of their own story.  There's also the romance about an ex-nun who gets shoved back into her family during the Kulturkampf because her convent is closed.  There's also the one about the French colonial woman (near Lake Champlain) who discovers that her husband had a Native American camp wife only after he is dead.

I would not have time in my life to write all the stories I have in my head even if I lived to be a thousand because I'd keep coming up with new ones.  It's not a tragedy that there are books that I'll never write.  It's my reality.    I don't even have the time to write all the ones that are driving me crazy.  I just have to resign myself to the fact that I'll always be crazy.

Life's too short to write what you don't enjoy.  There are VERY few people who can't enjoy *something* marketable, however!

Oh, and me?  I'm a reformed pantser.  VERY, VERY reformed.  I used to say aaaaaaall the things that pantsers say.  But then I sat down and studied story structures, and I write the arc of my stories to beats.  I don't have scenes that slot neatly into any sort of artificial framework.  Perfectly great writers do--I find that stifling, personally.  But I found a way to not do the word-wasting and heavy rewriting that so often is a result of freewheeling pantsing, and I will NEVER go back.  It was very, very hard to learn--harder than anything I've ever done with writing.  But it improved my writing in every respect, and it lets me write more of those stories that are nagging at me.


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## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

.


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

> So there's a really long post that says absolutely nothing about anything in the end. Just my 2 cents.


No, man, it said a lot and it resonated. Thanks for posting! (From one painter to another!)


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## Guest (May 4, 2014)

I'm just going to continue to have fun - like I have been.    What comes from that is what comes from that.

No need for anger, worry, judgement, self-doubt or any of the other angsty writer dramas when you're having fun.


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

> No need for anger, worry, judgement, self-doubt or any of the other angsty writer dramas when you're having fun


So true!



> Most genre writers I know who write to market aren't in a living hell. They're happily collecting 5 figures a month and excited to find new story lines that will engage readers.


Maybe you don't know many then. Because MOST writers don't make a living writing, even if they "write to market". 

And let's not forget: many of us don't care if we make 5 figures a month. We don't need 5 figures a month to be happy. For me, 4 figures a month would do that. If you don't write to market 4 figures a month is possible, but you need to have quite a few books out and price them fairly. Then you only need to sell a smaller number of each daily. That IS possible, but like I said, it takes time.

That's what bugs me about these threads. It has to be all extremes. Too many of the posts on this board are about earning five figures a month, and the feeling generated from some who comment is if you aren't striving for that you have something wrong with you. Writing is about more than how much money you can earn. Making a living is way different from making a LOT of money. Nothing wrong with either. Different goals. Just, please, realize making a ton of money isn't the only way to live happily.

There are also writers who only want to make "extra" month from writing. Nothing wrong with that, either. They're no less legitimate.

Oh, and *some* of the writer's [I know who make the five figures might be making money but I don't see them living a happy life. They write, write, and write. In the meantime, life is happening. Loved ones and friends are getting old. Memories are being made. And their nose is stuck in their writing. Which, again, is fine if they want that...but perhaps those friends and family would like them to be a little more involved in life.

I read one blog by a successful writer who said you should be writing whenever possible. If you aren't writing on a laptop at your kid's soccer game you aren't serious. Well, fabulous. You made a lot of money. In the meantime, you also showed your soccer playing child how important he/she is by not paying attention to something important to him/her...because you might miss a 5 figure month.

Getting cancer made me understand all I have is now. I needed to get that book written. BUT it also taught me that being present is what's important. LIFE is what's important. Writing isn't all of life, even if you are alone. Nature is out there. Friends are out there. Be present. Be involved in just being. (And by the way, I am now cancer free and have a excellent chance of remaining so.)


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## dianasg (Jan 8, 2010)

I have looked at it frontwards, backwards, and sideways, and I still don't understand the point of this thread. Some people write primarily for money; others primarily for themselves. These aren't mutually exclusive categories. Writing for yourself doesn't mean you don't care about your readers, and writing for the readers doesn't mean you are a miserable hack. And anyway, most strike a balance between what they love to write and what might sell. 

This entire thread began because someone had a problem with someone else suggesting that one study the market to decide what to write. Okay. Here's a public service announcement: it is possible to offer alternative advice -- to say, hey, that's one way of doing things, but here's another that might work for you because here's how/why it works for me -- WITHOUT trashing (or even placing judgment on) anyone who follows the other advice.  

Why does it matter what those *other* writers do, or why they write? Do what YOU do, write why YOU write -- and let others do the same.


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## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

P.J., a number of those books were very much written tightly to market!  Some of the writers were playing with the very market they were writing to, but yes, they were aimed squarely at that market.  It's awfully hard to label clearly genre fiction as "not to market"--not to mention the enormous marketing machine behind some of those literary fiction authors.


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## Guest (May 4, 2014)

Caddy said:


> So true!
> 
> Maybe you don't know many then. Because MOST writers don't make a living writing, even if they "write to market".
> 
> ...


Yeah, I'm not stuck to my laptop. I will always make time for other things - like my garden, for instance. This monster lover loves to garden, and my laptop is nowhere to be found when I'm gardening. 

Plus, I know how much I need to quit article writing, and it's not a 5 figure a month income. (I'll take it. Don't get me wrong.  But I don't need it.)


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

> eah, I'm not stuck to my laptop. I will always make time for other things - like my garden, for instance. This monster lover loves to garden, and my laptop is nowhere to be found when I'm gardening.
> 
> Plus, I know how much I need to quit article writing, and it's not a 5 figure a month income. (I'll take it. Don't get me wrong.  But I don't need it.)


AH, yes. My yard is calling me. I love to work with flowers. Can't have as many because I made that choice regarding money, but what I get I will work with. Doesn't it just renew your soul? 

OH, and yeah...I DREAM of Gastien (or any of my work) becoming a best seller, a huge cable series or movie. I'd take the money. But realistically I work toward 4 figures. If all of a sudden I make 5 (or even 6!)figures by a stroke of luck, oh baby, just you wait and SEE my flowers!


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## Guest (May 4, 2014)

DianaGabriel said:


> Why does it matter what those *other* writers do, or why they write? Do what YOU do, write why YOU write -- and let others do the same.


Yep. There would be no need for a majority of the threads at WC if authors would do this.  But they don't, and not just here.


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## Guest (May 4, 2014)

Caddy said:


> AH, yes. My yard is calling me. I love to work with flowers. Can't have as many because I made that choice regarding money, but what I get I will work with. Doesn't it just renew your soul?
> 
> OH, and yeah...I DREAM of Gastien (or any of my work) becoming a huge cable series or movie. I'd take the money. But realistically I work toward 4 figures. If all of a sudden I make 5 figures by a stroke of luck, oh baby, just you wait and SEE my flowers!


Love it!!


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## dianasg (Jan 8, 2010)

Joliedupre said:


> Yep. There would be no need for a majority of the threads at WC if authors would do this.  But they don't, and not just here.


Lol. Yeah, the thing is that it is possible for writers to give and get advice on the internet without all of the pearl-clutching and judgment. I know because I've seen it. I SEE it. Just very rarely here.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Harper Alibeck said:


> Most genre writers I know who write to market aren't in a living hell. They're happily collecting 5 figures a month and excited to find new story lines that will engage readers.
> 
> And +1 to Monique's comment upthread.


Did someone say they were in a living hell (other than a poster who was making fun of people who prefer to write what they care about)?

The point is that some of us WOULD be in a living hell if we chose that route. That it is fine for you does NOT mean it would work for everyone.

ETA: Incidentally, I am pretty sure there are some who write to market who are not 'collecting 5 figures a month'. There ain't no guarantees in this business.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

vmblack said:


> P.J., a number of those books were very much written tightly to market! Some of the writers were playing with the very market they were writing to, but yes, they were aimed squarely at that market. It's awfully hard to label clearly genre fiction as "not to market"--not to mention the enormous marketing machine behind some of those literary fiction authors.


Exactly what markets were Pride and Prejudice, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Pillars of the Earth written to? =)


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## AlexBrantham (Feb 27, 2014)

This "heart vs head" question is right where I am now.

I wrote and recently finished my first novel. I wrote it because I had to, and because I wanted to. Now it's out there, it feels great. It's probably not going to make me a pile of money, but I enjoyed doing it and learned a lot. The question of writing to a genre simply didn't arise. The best label I could come up with after the event was "romantic comedy", which is a fairly dubious one in the first place (for some reason it works much better in the cinema than in fiction).

Now I'm lining up to write my next one: I have a premise/scenario that I'm excited about and looking forward to writing, but I still have a choice: the same basic story could be written (with only modest adjustments) in any of a number of genres ... or, indeed, in a purely literary form that didn't fit any genre at all (and which therefore probably won't sell).

It's taken me a while to get my head round it, but I think I've hit on a genre in which I can write this story: one that I enjoy reading and am familiar with, and which therefore gives me at least a chance of both enjoying the process again AND maybe selling more than a few copies. Time will tell.


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## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

.


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## Guest (May 4, 2014)

P.J. Post said:


> I'm not a literary scholar, and might well be incorrect in my assertion, but I think we'll have to just agree to disagree on this one.


This isn't an us against them, for me. Ain't nobody got time for that.

But it was nice "chatting" with you guys. 

Write whatever the hell you're gonna write and then go find your readers. Or just write for yourself. Or just write for your mom. Whatever. Just write.


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## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

.


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## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

Pride and Prejudice was written in the same vein as an entire SLEW of women's romantic fiction of the era.  It mocked its own genre to some extent and avoided some of the romantic excesses, but it was in the dead middle of a big fat commercial genre--in fact, the FIRST commercial genre ever in existence.

If you don't read that genre, you don't know that.  I do.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

vmblack said:


> Pride and Prejudice was written in the same vein as an entire SLEW of women's romantic fiction of the era. It mocked its own genre to some extent and avoided some of the romantic excesses, but it was in the dead middle of a big fat commercial genre--in fact, the FIRST commercial genre ever in existence.
> 
> If you don't read that genre, you don't know that. I do.


Actually Jane Austin is reputed to have refuted writing romantic literature.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

vmblack said:


> Pride and Prejudice was written in the same vein as an entire SLEW of women's romantic fiction of the era. It mocked its own genre to some extent and avoided some of the romantic excesses, but it was in the dead middle of a big fat commercial genre--in fact, the FIRST commercial genre ever in existence.
> 
> If you don't read that genre, you don't know that. I do.


Actually Jane Austin is reputed to have refuted writing romantic literature.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

Threads like this make me want to say, "Can't we all just get along?"


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

vmblack said:


> Pride and Prejudice was written in the same vein as an entire SLEW of women's romantic fiction of the era. It mocked its own genre to some extent and avoided some of the romantic excesses, but it was in the dead middle of a big fat commercial genre--in fact, the FIRST commercial genre ever in existence.
> 
> If you don't read that genre, you don't know that. I do.


No, I don't read romance. I have studied 19th century literature though and I do know just a little bit about _Pride and Prejudice_._ Pride and Prejudice_ was written to tear down the 19th century view of marriage, not as a romance. The entire novel challenges the 19th century view of women. Austen's objective was satirizing the social restrictions put upon women.

I suggest re-reading it and looking at what it actually says.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Status is what matters. 

When gatekeepers selected who would be published, a certain status was conferred on the author. They were different from all those unpublished authors. They were vetted and found worthy. The slush was rinsed off. They might not sell much, but they could take comfort in the idea that they were part of a select group.

But what status comes from clicking the Amazon KDP upload button? Even I can do that. Nobody is selected for admission by the experts. No vetting. No bragging rights. No status. Anyone can come in. 

Even worse, the built in scorecard is based on what masses of consumers buy.

So, we need other status markers besides sales. Professional author. Real writer. Serious author. Edited authors. Well-covered author. Authors who don't use adverbs. These separate one from the unmodified authors.

Then we have authors who don't care about money, authors who write from the heart, and authors who just care.

Status seeking is a normal human phenomenon. Nothing special about books.

God Bless the Lumpen, for all are welcome.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> No, I don't read romance. I have studied 19th century literature though and I do know just a little bit about _Pride and Prejudice_._ Pride and Prejudice_ was written to tear down the 19th century view of marriage, not as a romance. The entire novel challenges the 19th century view of women. Austen's objective was satirizing the social restrictions put upon women.
> 
> I suggest re-reading it and looking at what it actually says.


Oh, that awkward moment when JR and I agree...

I'm a casual romance reader. I've studied 19th century history and know a wee bit about the era in which Pride and Prejudice was set in. It was written as a commentary on marriage and money, and the social expectations on upper class women who had no way to look after themselves due to the constraints of society on wealthy, titled, and gentlefolk. Austen's book and the satire have often caused scholars to debate if she was a subversive. Lydia, for example, wasn't "properly" punished for her actions. Lucy was rewarded for being a backstabbing, manipulative gold digger. Marianne wasn't shamed for her actions. On and on.

The social aspect of Pride and Prejudice is actually half of the novel. The novel does not work nearly as well without it. One of the challenges when I adapted it was that people just wanted Lizzy and Darcy riding into the sunset; many people were floored and confused at all of this social justice discussion. I think a lot of people miss the historical class context of Pride and Prejudice because they don't know the history of the era. They see it as sweet romance, when in fact the topics are well beyond that.


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

vmblack said:


> Right now, on my hard drive, I have 300 pages of a 1600s-set literary fiction romance (a romance in the 1800s sense more than the genre sense) written in a nonlinear fashion with interweaving themes much like Joseph Conrad's Nostromo. It covers, among other things, the 1619 arrival of the ship of women in Jamestown and the 1622 massacre. It also includes battery, a stillbirth, the death of a husband, and a child almost dying from a snakebite.
> 
> I love it. It's lyrical and beautiful--and my critique partners went crazy for it, more than any other book I've ever written. I had one who said she dreamed about the book, repeatedly, it haunted her so much.
> 
> It's not finished for a reason. There is no ready market for this book.


There's always a market for a great book. I'd love to read this. Finish it, and get it out there&#8230;.it may be your top seller, you never know.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

PamelaKelley said:


> There's always a market for a great book. I'd love to read this. Finish it, and get it out there....it may be your top seller, you never know.


People thought the Birth House didn't have a market. Turned out, many people loved it and it went on to win plenty of awards.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> Oh, that awkward moment when JR and I agree...


Don't let it happen again. 



vmblack said:


> Right now, on my hard drive, I have 300 pages of a 1600s-set literary fiction romance (a romance in the 1800s sense more than the genre sense) written in a nonlinear fashion with interweaving themes much like Joseph Conrad's Nostromo. It covers, among other things, the 1619 arrival of the ship of women in Jamestown and the 1622 massacre. It also includes battery, a stillbirth, the death of a husband, and a child almost dying from a snakebite.
> 
> I love it. It's lyrical and beautiful--and my critique partners went crazy for it, more than any other book I've ever written. I had one who said she dreamed about the book, repeatedly, it haunted her so much.
> 
> It's not finished for a reason. There is no ready market for this book.


How do you know? There was a market for Wolf Hall, for example.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

In the end, it doesn't matter who chooses to write what. What matters is what choices you make for yourself and if you are okay with those choices. If you write for money and are OK with it, then do it. If you write for love and know you would be unhappy writing for money, then make that choice. If you are okay with doing one for the love, one for the money (my path to non-riches), then do that. 

Bottom line: choose your own career path and let others choose theirs.

Seriously, we don't need 7 pages to come up with such a simple concept.


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## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

Mercia McMahon said:


> Actually Jane Austin is reputed to have refuted writing romantic literature.


Have you actually read any of Jane Austen's works?

She despised the fainting and the contrived relationships and the fake sentimentality of some of the popular fiction of her day. If you read her unpublished juvenalia, you'd know what her opinion on the matter was. She didn't like the early gothics (Northanger Abbey, for instance, is an anti-gothic romance), but every single one is a romance--a strict genre romance in the modern sense, in fact.

Please realize that the word "romance" in the early 19th century had a completely different meaning than it does today. Romantic literature meant highly sensationalized and at times overwrought or gothic sentimental work. It did not, in fact, mean a love story, full stop, as it does now.

Her books are ALL about finding true love. They reject doing crazy and stupid things as examples of love, but every single one is about finding a deep and abiding loving relationship--sometimes even in the face of parental disapproval.

Before these genres had names, they existed. They didn't even rate names for a LONG time because they were written by and for women. That doesn't mean that they didn't have very strong types and conventions--which Jane Austen obeyed. The Bronte sisters were quintessential gothic romance writers themselves--of course, this was in the era before romances starred a "happily ever after," and everyone dying dramatically was an equally valid ending for them. These women were all fantastic writers, but not one of them was writing outside of a genre.

I'd also like to point out that the VAST majority of professional novelists who made enough money to support a family were WOMEN. The first one is a great writer you've probably never heard of, just like you've heard of almost none of the other early romantic writers. Her name was Aphra Behn, and she was the first professional novelist in the English language. She was despised and scorned for being female and for writing to a primarily female audience--but unlike most male contemporaries, she SOLD, and she supported her family (she was a widow) solely through her work, without any kind of patronage or other source of income. No other male novelist could do the same.

In fact, the novel form itself was so controlled by female writers for a female audience that for many years, men would not take the novel as a serious form of literature. It was considered contemptible because the women writing and consuming it were contemptible.

And trying to make Jane Austen into something other than the female genre writer that she was is just another form of contempt for them--and really, for her, too.


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## Bluebonnet (Dec 15, 2013)

jackiegp said:


> I am l
> I am late to this party but who is Viola? I'm sorry, new and confused.


Viola is a member here. See page 1 of this thread and scroll down, then you'll see her post.


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## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

JRTomlin said:


> No, I don't read romance. I have studied 19th century literature though and I do know just a little bit about _Pride and Prejudice_._ Pride and Prejudice_ was written to tear down the 19th century view of marriage, not as a romance. The entire novel challenges the 19th century view of women. Austen's objective was satirizing the social restrictions put upon women.
> 
> I suggest re-reading it and looking at what it actually says.


And who told you that? You certainly didn't get it from reading the book. The book does attack several things--the system of entailment and primogeniture; the "intellectual lady" who covers a lack of physical attractiveness with a poor attempt at being accomplished (Exactly how is THAT a feminist coup of any sort? Austen despised and mocked overly intelligent women as "trying too hard."); the headstrong, sentimental girl in love with the idea of love (the same themes are in Emma and Sense and Sensibility); and also the tendency of the middle class to put too much emphasis on the outward appearance of respectability and honor rather than its actual substance. She gently lampooned Lizzy's parent's marriage, as well--which is of the rather henpecked sort that you could find in all kinds of literature of the period.

At the exact same time, she gave not one but TWO examples of idealized romantic love--first, the Jane's, who as the "perfect sister" in grace, temperament, and beauty, effortlessly sailed into an equally perfect match, and also Lizzy's, which was a much more cerebral kind of affection that grew in spite of initial negative appearances as she learns to not take people quite at face value.

17th through 19th century literature was my specialty, and the 19th century particularly was my closest area of concentration.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

vmblack said:


> Have you actually read any of Jane Austen's works?
> 
> She despised the fainting and the contrived relationships and the fake sentimentality of some of the popular fiction of her day. If you read her unpublished juvenalia, you'd know what her opinion on the matter was. She didn't like the early gothics (Northanger Abbey, for instance, is an anti-gothic romance), but every single one is a romance--a strict genre romance in the modern sense, in fact.
> 
> ...


Saying that Jane Austen had themes and nuances far beyond Happily-Ever-After is hardly showing contempt for her, nor is it contempt for those who write something simpler. There is more than enough room in the world for both.

What she was reacting against in Pride in Prejudice was not fainting and sensationalism, but the selling of women as objects and of marriage as nothing more than a financial transaction.


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## jackiegp (May 18, 2013)

Wow, I feel compelled to jump in here. I've had an agent for nearly 5 years, as as a natural extension of his duties he guides my career, which means, we discuss my writing choices in relationship to the current selling market and we make decisions regarding what I'm going to write when, in relationship to that market. I throw out ideas I'm thinking of writing and he gently guides me toward which one would be most marketable within the next 6-10 month market window (which is ever-changing as we all know). We discuss what is selling, what editors are buying, what is waining in the marketplace and he gives me his two cents about which one of my projects would be more likely to sell. In effect, it could be viewed as writing to the market, BUT it is not, it is the benefits of having an agent aware of the market and getting his advice. It still embraces things I've expressed a desire to write, he just adds to that some market insight. It would be stupid of him to encourage me to write something that current market trends predict readers have tired of, when you could put your energy into something trends indicate readers are desiring more of. The same should hold true for self pub. Being aware of the market is smart. Making yourself a slave to the market is not. (I'm not suggesting anyone suggested that here, btw, just making a statement.) As long as you are writing the stories you desire to write, and your heart is in them...there is nothing wrong with exploring new and healthy genres. Mainstream writers do it on the advice of their agents and editors all the time.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

vmblack said:


> And who told you that? You certainly didn't get it from reading the book. The book does attack several things--the system of entailment and primogeniture; the "intellectual lady" who covers a lack of physical attractiveness with a poor attempt at being accomplished (Exactly how is THAT a feminist coup of any sort? Austen despised and mocked overly intelligent women as "trying too hard."); the headstrong, sentimental girl in love with the idea of love (the same themes are in Emma and Sense and Sensibility); and also the tendency of the middle class to put too much emphasis on the outward appearance of respectability and honor rather than its actual substance. She gently lampooned Lizzy's parent's marriage, as well--which is of the rather henpecked sort that you could find in all kinds of literature of the period.
> 
> At the exact same time, she gave not one but TWO examples of idealized romantic love--first, the Jane's, who as the "perfect sister" in grace, temperament, and beauty, effortlessly sailed into an equally perfect match, and also Lizzy's, which was a much more cerebral kind of affection that grew in spite of initial negative appearances as she learns to not take people quite at face value.
> 
> 17th through 19th century literature was my specialty, and the 19th century particularly was my closest area of concentration.


Thank you, no one had to tell me that although it was certainly discussed in classes. I am quite capable of reading her books.

The fact that Kitty for example is not punished for her transgressions was a shocking departure for the period. The emphasis was not on 'respectability' but on saving their estate which would go to Collins, hence the pressure on Elizabeth to marry him and the shock when she refuses.

However, one thing is for sure, even you in your 'analysis' admit that Austen did not write her books as nothing more than mirrors of what was already being written which disproves your earlier contention that she did.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Krista D. Ball said:


> In the end, it doesn't matter who chooses to write what. What matters is what choices you make for yourself and if you are okay with those choices. If you write for money and are OK with it, then do it. If you write for love and know you would be unhappy writing for money, then make that choice. If you are okay with doing one for the love, one for the money (my path to non-riches), then do that.
> 
> Bottom line: choose your own career path and let others choose theirs.
> 
> Seriously, we don't need 7 pages to come up with such a simple concept.


Agreeing with you, Krista, but don't expect it to happen again.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> Agreeing with you, Krista, but don't expect it to happen again.


Yeah, sorry about that.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

S.W. Vaughn said:


> Oh. My. God. Jan wrote DARKWING DUCK?!
> 
> ...also wrote episodes of many other shows that we love.


Jan, this specific stuff really should be in your Amazon author bio. Really.


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## Jan Strnad (May 27, 2010)

Cherise Kelley said:


> Jan, this specific stuff really should be in your Amazon author bio. Really.


I guess the problem I have with the TV cartoons is that I hardly feel like the "author" of those stories. Here's the basic process, especially as practiced by Disney:

[list type=decimal]
[*]A team develops the series and writes a "bible" detailing the major characters, the types of stories they're looking for, etc.
[*]I come up with a dozen or so springboards for episodes
[*]I pitch my ideas
[*]The editor picks one or two, or maybe combines a couple of them, and adds his/her own ideas
[*]I write a page-or-so long premise
[*]I get notes and rewrite the premise
[*]I get notes on the rewrite and write a final premise (the union maximum number of rewrites they can require before either accepting the premise or killing it)
[*]I write a 10-12 page outline, get notes, rewrite, get notes, write a final outline
[*]I write a script, get notes, rewrite, get notes, write a final script
[*]the editor writes the actual, final script
[*]a storyboard artist breaks the script into pictures, going through his/her own notes process
[*]everything goes to some foreign country to be animated
[/list]

By the end of the process, how much can I truly claim is mine? Sometimes my work is plussed, sometimes it's diminished, sometimes I feel a little bit of ownership for certain sequences and lines of dialogue.

I took pride in my work and gave it my all, but I really can't take the credit (or blame) for the final product.

So, I mention that I wrote cartoons for many studios and kind of let it go at that.

I'm as much a newbie novelist as anybody here. I think I'm learning, getting better, and maybe all of those comic books and cartoons have helped me with aspects of novel writing, but I'm not sure how much of a bragging point they actually are.

Sorry for the thread hijack!


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