This came up yesterday when I asked for a bunch of ideas for blog posts. I figured I might as well start with this one and get the ball rolling. One of the writers had asked about how to write and market these stories.
While writing stories around a set holiday is fun and certainly does give you a good portion of the world building, selling projects like this can be extremely difficult. In many ways, it is like writing a category romance. There really is only one place it can be sold to. You simply can't market it to a lot of different people. As for the holiday themed stories, you have to remember that the publisher is really limited to certain times of the year to release the book. That holiday theme forces them to have to put it during that holiday.
By writing a story that has some more flexibility in the time it is set will give the publisher the chance to release it during different times in the year. This can often work to your advantage if your book is now a highlighted feature as opposed to being dumped in with a lot of other similar books.
I would also have to add that, for the most part, many of these holiday themed books we see coming out are written by the established authors at that publishing house and were done after being asked by editors. These are simply "special projects."
So, should you write a story around a holiday? Sure, there is nothing wrong with it. I would just remind you that it may end up being a bit harder to sell.
Again, just my thoughts on this one.
Scott
Not only is it a hard sell unless a digital pub has a special call, you'll see that sales for that book are also very low compared to something else. Especially books at Christmastime. Don't look for these projects to be your best sellers. Food for thought before you sink your hard work into them.
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