Regarding the myth that readers determine what gets published

[rolanni]

OK, so I just read this article in PW about new trends in YA, or What's Hot and What's Not.

And the Nice Agent People are all allowing as how they participated in the flooding of the market with Urban Fantasy and Dystopian novels, until nobody wants UF or Dystopian novels any more, and now they're looking for the Coming Thing, which they believe will be "Contemporary Fiction." Which they will proceed to flood the market with until nobody wants it anymore, and then they'll be looking for the Coming Thing.

And my question is...why the hell can't we learn that flooding the market with anything serves no one? That a balanced approach means that every reader can find something that they like to read, all the time? I've stopped reading Science Fiction a couple of times in my life because I happened to hate the Hot Thing, and there! was! nothing else! but! the Hot Thing on offer. The years when all the SF had to be Hard, and Space Opera was dead, were especially trying.

Also, I'm kind of tired of proclamations like, "Second World Fantasy is dead." Because? Those sorts of proclamations, made by people who, actually don't know if Second World Fantasy is really dead, or just taking a breather -- mean that no one is going to be able to sell a Second World Fantasy to any of the established houses, the editors of which know that SWF is dead. . .which is why writers (1) Drink and (2) Self Publish.

And the trilogy thing? For years authors who had written a good, tight standalone novel were told that they "had" to write a trilogy. Which meant that the author sometimes "stretched" the ideas that had made a enthralling standalone until they broke, the trilogy tanked and readers got mad -- at them, not at the folks who "knew" that standalones were dead.

*deep breath*

So, it's a good thing that we're sitting over here in our corner, writing Space Opera set in a universe of our own devising, which we've been doing for a while now, and not starting-out writers starving for publication, and studying the Hot Trends in the hope that their book will be bought during the flood's high water mark.

*looks at button*

*pushes it off*

Comments

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

when book pickings get slim, and the current fad is sludging up whats new, I still have my TBR stacks to browse through to find something readable... since the input of NEW!SHINY!BOOKS! will slow down considerably.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

TBR piles are perfect to tide readers over times of lean-publishing-of-stuff-I-like, but kind of problem for the writers who are writing to the Hot New Thing! market...

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

right now the zombie angels are edging out the werewolves and the vampires ...

I just am tired of dystopian grayness..

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Over in the stock market world, there seem to be various folks who make a living by going against the trend. If everyone else is saying, "Buy electronics, that's hot," these people are busily saying, "Sell electronics. Go with pharmaceuticals!" Or whatever.

I'm not sure why people believe the book industry is so narrow. Especially now, with self-pub and independent publishers busily growing the range of offerings.

Balance. What a radical concept! Makes sense, too.

Incidentally, given the time to write, peddle, and eventually publish something, does it make sense to try to hit today's hot stuff, or even next year's hot stuff? More like several years out, isn't it?

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, given the time to write, peddle, and eventually publish something, does it make sense to try to hit today's hot stuff, or even next year's hot stuff? More like several years out, isn't it?

No, by the time that a writer on the outside has:
1. identified the Hot New Trend
2. written a book to the Hot New Trend
3. submitted the book

. . .they will probably find that no one is buying that Hot New Trend any more, because it's cold, because the editors buy at least two years ahead. And nobody knows what the next Hot New Trend will be, so, it just seems to make sense to write what you love, rather than "to the market."

But then, we've never written to the market...

[charlie russel (from livejournal.com)]

This desire for THE HOT THING is nearly killing Fantasy right now, since it seems like werewolves, zombies, and other such things are currently IT. Which means that those of us who enjoy a good fantasy, but without zombies, thank you very much, are pretty much stuck unless one of our favourite authors happens to buck the trend and write a new fantasy. Because no NEW author is going to be able to convince someone to buy their Maine Carousel fantasy. And even established authors will sometimes have trouble convincing a publisher to let them write what their existing readers actually want to read. And that the author actually wants to write.

Fortunately, as I get older, I appreciate re-reading old friends more and more. It gets me through the droughts. And when one of my favourite authors produces a new book with a familiar universe/setting/character, it's a lovely excuse to take a trip with the earlier ones in that "series".

[drammar.livejournal.com]

What you said.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Because no NEW author is going to be able to convince someone to buy their Maine Carousel fantasy.

To be fair, nobody really loved Carousel Tides as much as I did. I include in this number Steve and our agent. And every single editor of every single fantasy line then in existence. From which we learn that Toni has a rare grasp of the market.

And, I don't know -- it may have been an easier sell for a new author. It could well have been that the rejecting editors had already made certain Assumptions based on That Liaden Stuff. Or, because, yeah, no vampires. Or because Everybody Knows that fantasy books set in Maine don't sell.

But the fact is that, I wanted to write the damn' book; I did write the damn' book, and byerlady, I woulda published the damn' book myself if no one had bought it.

Because, sometimes. . .you just gotta do what you've gotta do.

The folks who write to the market forget that, or they manage to suppress it, and that's sad. Writing a novel is hard; if you can't at least take joy in what you're writing, what's the point?

And the folks who buy to the market. . .engender cynical and wary readers.

[charlie russel (from livejournal.com)]

Yeah, but if we always read what we thought we wanted, and the authors always wrote what the editors said they wanted, there would be a lot less interesting books out there, and I'd read a lot less than I do, cause I'd be bored! Sometimes, as readers, we have to take a leap of faith in our known writers. As editors do sometimes. (Do you really think Toni would have accepted Carousel Tides from an unknown author?) Would I ever have read Duanfey if the writer had been some unknown? And my reading experience would have been poorer for that lack. Sometimes we need to be stretched outside of our comfort zone. It's not always easy, but it's almost always worth while.

[attilathepbnun.livejournal.com]

Yah, true ... Same thing happens in adult fiction, to a certain extent. The number of 'Fifty Shades ..' imitators .... Bad + Bad *does NOT* equal good, people!*rolls eyes*
It's enough to make one enter a nunnery. A *cloistered* nunnery ....

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Oh! The Bloody Nunnery? Who killed Sister Benedict? Or what? Now there's a theme I don't think I've seen recently.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

It happens in Romance all the time -- and the SF people like to ridicule the genre for it, too. "How could you have thought that hidden baby/cowboy/brothers/female fighter pilot plots wouldn't start to get stale after you flooded the market with it for the last year and a half?"

I'd like to say that it's nice that no one genre has cornered the market...but it's not. Nice, that is. It's depressing that no one seems able to stand up and yell, "Wait! Wait! We don't have to be just sheep! We can publish a lot of different kinds of books, and sell to everybody!"

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

In about two more chapters I'm going to send this Pride-and-Prejudice-with-magic thing to my agent and see if he thinks anybody will buy it. With the bizarre flailing of the publishing industry, I really have no idea, but with the bizarre flailing of the publishing industry, at least I can legitimately do it on my own now if the publishing houses don't want it.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Good luck, however it falls out!

And having the realistic option of self-publishing is. . .remarkable freeing, isn't it?

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

It's *stunning*. It's a complete game changer. And I totally understand why the publishing industry is panicking, even if at the same time I basically have no sympathy for them *at all*. It is, as I will probably keep saying until my dying day, as if Napster and the music industry implosion happened in a completely separate universe, and they can learn *nothing* from the music industry's mistakes.

[ceedee-x.livejournal.com]

... they can learn *nothing* from the music industry's mistakes.

Oh, I don't know. They have learned *something*. They have reduced prices of their backlist titles heavily so that you have To Look Hard to distinguish between a Tradpub and an Indie book - which have dominated the 0.99/2.99/3.99 pricerange so far - to get back a part of the readers who troll this price range heavily.
Furthermore: The TBR-lists on peoples readers. They are stuffed with Things To Read by free and heavily discounted books, and I predict that next years book sales will slow down everywhere. No Hot Thing will help. In Tradpub and in Selfpub. At least the rush is over. Somewhen between now and then readers will wise up and actually read - or try and delete - their TBR books, and until they caught up... Ugh. Why buy new when your library is overflowing?

--
Frohe Weihnachten und ein erfolgreiches Neues Jahr! :-)

[birdhousefrog.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear!

Oz

Just ignore that.

[vsh-ny.livejournal.com]

I just had an accident -- read one of the "hot", top-rated, YA books -- and rather not spell out my impressions.

Please keep writing your own stuff.
By the way, is there any chance you eventually write a sequel for "The Tomorrow Log"? I know that this project was declared abandoned, but one can still hope.

Re: Just ignore that.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

By the way, is there any chance you eventually write a sequel for "The Tomorrow Log"? I know that this project was declared abandoned, but one can still hope.

I really think that the TTL sequel is dead. Certainly, we won't be considering it any time soon, with five Liaden books on our plate...

Re: Just ignore that.

[charlie russel (from livejournal.com)]

Having just finished re-reading TTL, thanks to the Audible edition, I'm sorry there won't be more, since I like the characters. But honestly, with THE FIVE already under contract, and given all that has happened since the original creation of TTL, I can understand why no more. And accept it, even.

[stitchwhich.livejournal.com]

I wondered why it was that as the years rolled by, I'd find myself re-reading a lot of books and sadly walking away from shelves in the library and bookstores (while cruising used bookstores more and more). Now I know. It wasn't that there weren't writers producing what interested me, it was that - much like the salad dressing industry - printing companies were deciding what was "in" without paying any attention to what their customers would want.

Even more of a disappointment is getting a glut of well-written books in a particular sub-genre only to find that new titles are no longer being offered. Much like searching the grocery shelves for "Ceasar Parmasan" salad dressing. Oh yea, good marketing... get the consumer to develop a taste for something and then take it away. (I actually miss hard Science Fiction.)

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I don't mind well-done Hard SF, in moderation. But I really resented the glut of not-so-well-done Hard SF that flooded the market awhile back, to the exclusion of anything else. I ran away and hid in the Mystery/Romance section for a couple years.

[zola.livejournal.com]

I am so very sick of zombies, soft-porn supernatural creature novels, and poorly conceived dystopias that I have been reading old books rather than getting new ones.