Wednesday, January 9, 2008

But it's not on the shelves

There is this big myth out there about what you find on the shelves and what is publishable or not. I hate to break it to you all, but this is not as easy a correlation as you think.

Writers will frequently tell me that they have never seen a book like this out there so therefore their story is VERY marketable.

WRONG!!!

Have you ever thought about the fact that since there isn't anything out there, it means that no one is interested in it?

On the other hand, just because there are a ton of books out there in your genre, it doesn't mean that your book is in high demand. Remember these books are 2 years old by the time they hit the shelf. You may be way off the trend by that point. Along the same lines, if there are a ton of books out there, tell me why a publisher would want another of the same.

Look, just write a good story. Make sure it is something that is viable for publishing. Do your research and quit trying to follow trends.

2 comments:

  1. Yes, you are absolutely right. The main thing is just to write a GOOD book.

    Rowling wrote HP when nobody was into those books. So did Stephen King and lists of other authors. They just wrote what they wanted and wrote it well.

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  2. But it still needs to be marketable. Just writing what you want is far from good enough.

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