Writing to Market
By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)
Writing to market isn’t a new concept, but recently it’s become one of the hot topic issues within the writing world, largely thanks to Chris Fox’s 21 Day Novel Challenge.
On one side of the divide over writing to market are authors who say that writing to market is the way to earn a good living off your work. On the other side are writers who say that writing to market makes you a mercenary and will lead to a short career where you burn out and hate to write.
This month, in my regular guest post at Fiction University, I’m explaining what writing to market means, taking a look at some of the pros and cons, and asking whether we really have to choose between writing for love or writing for money. Is it possible to find the spot where what we love to write and what we can make money writing overlap?
I hope you’ll join me for “Writing to Market – What Is It and Should You Try It?“
Interested in more ways to improve your writing? Check out my Busy Writer’s Guides such as Description, Showing and Telling in Fiction, Deep Point of View, or Internal Dialogue.
Image Credit: Cameron H/freeimages.com
Jul 21, 2016 @ 09:10:08
Hi Marcy,
Chris Fox kicked me out of IAC for speaking out against a few ill-conceived marketing concepts. The whole writing-to-market concept is one of them (IAC seems to be a cult of his followers, by the way). To move a wee bit above the fray, let me quote Cyril Connolly: “Better to write for yourself and have no public, than write for the public and have no self.” My corollary: To your own self be ture.
After Stieg Larsson’s Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, how many Girl-books appeared? Before Sue Grafton even went deep into the alphabet, how many titles appeared with one-letter beginnings? I’m expecting The Venusian and Yarn sci-fi novels to appear shortly.
If the problem was just with titles, I wouldn’t mind so much. But writing to market goes far beyond that. Indie authors are especially guilty of following fads. Cozy (or cat) mysteries are popular, so write that? Erotica is popular, so write that? Any author that jumps on bandwagons diminishes my respect for their art and creativity.
r/Steve
Jul 21, 2016 @ 10:54:05
I admit I’m not familiar with IAC, but I love when people share differing opinions. It helps everyone grow, and by having someone challenge our opinion, we’re forced to look at our beliefs more critically, facing the strengths and weaknesses with honesty.
What you’re saying is very much like what Kristine Kathryn Rusch wrote in the article I linked to in my post. She took the stance that nothing new and valuable has ever come from chasing trends. She also said that she’s seen a lot of writers come and go, burning out on writing, because they were always chasing after the latest “hotness” rather than writing what they loved.
My opinion is that we should know our options and consider them carefully rather than blindly following what anyone else says is the right path. If someone chooses to write something solely for the purpose of making money, I don’t think I can fault them for that because we all need to pay our bills somehow. I wrote magazine articles for years, not because I enjoyed it but because I needed to eat. I viewed it as a means to an end, allowing me to work toward doing what I loved.
That said, ideally it’s best to find where what we love intersects with what will sell. That’s not always possible, and then we have to decide what fits best with our goals and values. I have a series I’m working on that I’m pretty sure is the opposite of writing to market, but I love the characters and I love the story, and I wanted to write them even if they don’t sell. I also have an idea for a series that would fall exactly in line with what’s popular in its genre and could be considered writing to market. I love it just as much, so I’m also working on it. I don’t think it always has to be an either/or. Sometimes it can be a both/and.
Jul 21, 2016 @ 11:48:52
Marcy,
Your last paragraph illustrates the sane approach. I’ll only comment that “writing to market” doesn’t guarantee putting food on the table because, by the time one adds a work to a new niche, that niche has already narrowed considerably. The first author who discovers it wins big; others, not so much. It’s like the 49ers panning for gold. By the time they got around Cape Horn and reached California, the opportunity for riches were much slimmer.
On the other hand, people have to make a living. Today it’s hard to do so as an author. I always tell young people interested in a writing career to have a backup or a day-job–journalism, for example, allows you to make a living writing while working on those short stories, novellas, and novels. It’s a slog. Not everyone can win the lottery like E. L. James, Andy Weir, or Hugh Howey. (I do insist it’s a lottery in many ways. You can’t win if you don’t play, of course, but all things PR and marketing “gurus” suggest to increase your chances aren’t sufficient conditions in the logical sense. That’s what IAC objected to most, by the way. They preached that all it takes is hard work.)
All the best,
Steve