What Is The Market Buying? Should You Adapt?

Market research is one of the top skills business people work on. They find what is selling and adapt to those trends. The know where in the world their products are selling and adjust their sales to that market. Honestly, companies who just say they are going to stick to to what they are doing and only sell to where they want, despite what market analysis tells them will fail. 

Publishers are no different. They watch sales of the books they put out. They watch what covers sell and what covers do not sell. The survey their readers to see their likes and dislikes. They watch what seems to be a hot topic or trend in other areas and work to adapt their sales to those trends. 

The reality is that market research is all a huge game of strategy, similar to Chess and other similar games. In most cases, you can make a pretty good estimate. It is not a 100% science, but it is pretty dang accurate.

So, why do I bring this up? Authors, who want to be writing as a profession and as a business seem to think the idea of market research does not apply to them. Authors just sit there and write "what they want to write" or "write where their passion is currently at" even though it is product doomed to fail. 

I don't know how many times I meet authors at conferences who tell me of these great stories they are working on, and yet, are puzzled as to why editors and agents are not interested? "This is a great story!" they proclaim, and yet never look to see that NOBODY is buying that style of writing. 

Authors also get pretty upset when, after all of their dedication and commitment to the publisher, they are told that they are no longer going to publish her books. The company has decided that it is time to cut the author loose. These authors then scream and rant to their friends and on social media of how the publisher is just being unfair. How dare they do this???

Many of these authors often make another mistake. Instead of adjusting their strategies, they essentially "flip off" the publishing world proclaiming the writing community just doesn't know, and they continue with what they are writing. Unfortunately success is often not around the corner. Instead, this move destroys their career. 

If you think adaptation is a joke and to be successful, you just need to "stick to what you know" consider the following. 

Madonna, The Rolling Stones, Jefferson Starship (Starship), John Cougar Mellencamp (w/ or w/o the Cougar) all learned to stay successful, it requires adaptation. And yet, they all kept their own voice. 

Look, if your genre and style is selling well and is current with the market, you have no need to change. Keep going.

HOWEVER...

If the market is changing and your writing is not keeping up with the trend, it might be time to adjust!