Writing the Market

The business of books is so much different than people think it is. It's so much different than I thought it would be. I, along with many people I meet, thought writing a book meant you would instantly be rich (LMAO). I also thought books sold themselves (ROTFLMAO). But what I think I am still learning is that book writing and book marketing are two different skill sets which take two vastly different ways of thinking. And while it is crucial that book writing affects the marketing, I am increasingly adamant that marketing should never influence writing.

Many people have asked if I have an agent. I don't, and it is not for lack of trying. I scour the MSWL webpage looking for matches. I watch QueryTracker for when agents become available. But I have yet to have more than a bite on a manuscript. Judging by the fact that three publishers have decided to tale a chance on my work, I don't think it's because of my writing or that it doesn't have an audience. And the people who have been kind enough to read my work have said lovely things about it (for the most part). So what gives? A big reason is I don't think my books fit very cleanly in to many algorithms. And part of that that is I'm not really writing books for mainstream audiences perusing those algorthmic titles. Those are the audiences which have the most market potential for a book, and therefore are the most attractive to agents. So that begs the questions... Why don't I just write a little more mainstream? Why don't I have more of a platform to write from?

Now it's easy to believe that I've chosen a region to write about as my platform (more on that in a subsequent post). But my stories often have convoluted endings because that's what I think is true to life (and the tradition of literary fiction). My characters seek to elicit big emotions, often ones we try not to feel. All of that edges my writing into the corners of the literary marketplace. In fact, readership of literary fiction (which is now more commonly defined as fiction that is both artistic in form, but also tends to focus more on the internal world of its characters), while stable, is mostly considered niche. So why would any writer continue to write in a genre that seems doomed? The answer for me is because thinking about how I'd market a book begins to suck the creativity out of anything I'm trying to do. It can kill an idea before it even takes root. It flattens my characters. I want to write about so many different things and thinking about how to market them makes them shrink to oblivion. It's one thing to consider a reader as you write, it's another to try and adapt to a marketplace. I can connect to a person. A market...

Not only are authors expected to have logos, aestetics, and themes now, we are supposed to always be aware of our personal brand. This is already overwhelming in corporate spaces, but it feels like it limits ideas in a creative space. If a lit fiction writer wants to switch to pulpy westerns, the threat to branding would be enough to shut him down. Years ago, Mark Twain was known for his childhood nostalgia novels. But people still wanted to know what he had to say when he got political/philosophical. I don't have the direct quote, but I'm pretty sure Stephen King said he would love to write more in other genres, but he struggles against his horror brand. Do you know about his masterpience On Writing (the title should be self explanatory)? If you do, you're a writer. Otherwise, you're probably wondering why I said that was his masterpience and not It. However the argument could be made that his greatest fiction was his collection of four novellas called Different Seasons. If you are brave, see what movies came from that collection (inlcluding the most syndicated movie on cable of all time). Please note, Stephen King is an absolute outlier. But even with his nauseating amount of success, therer were other things he wished he could create and felt fenced in.

Marketing appears to be as much of an existential threat to creativity as AI. It's even worse when we let them work together. We will consume the tales of lovemaking with dragons and elves until we are bored with it. Then we will switch to the next fad of houseplant thrillers. We are full of stories, ideas, and viewpoints. The world needs all of them if we are to understand our place in it. Relying on what sells will only tell us which fad we are in, rather than what moves us, what drives us, or what haunts us. The more we let a market decide what art is, the more we step away from understanding ourselves, and how we move this version of ourselves into the next epoch. I'll leave you with this David Bowie quote:

"I think it's terribly dangerous for an artist to fulfill other people's expectations — they generally produce their worst work when they do that."

P.S. I do not want to discourage your houseplant thriller. In fact, please send it to me. I need to read this.