Last week, I spoke about fashion and literary hemlines. I talked about the overreaction that tends to set in during these swings and suggested some techniques for ensuring your work has the flexibility to adapt.<\/p>\n
I got a lot of interesting responses, as I always do, but one theme stood out. I\u2019ll put this in the eloquent words of DM Costa, who commented on Townhouse thus:<\/p>\n
I don’t think it is advisable to “write to fashion trends” because there are so many variables and a non-static timeline. The target audience is also a moving target: always shifting opinion and taste.<\/em><\/p>\n Some professional writers try to write to trends, but how many do succeed? Most of the novels that have jumped on that bandwagon have missed the train completely or if they manage to get on it briefly, they don’t stay “fashionable” for long. They quickly fall off into the depths of oblivion.<\/em><\/p>\n On the order hand… some of those who dare to write the novel they absolutely want to write, and write it the best way they can and with all their passion, do tend to succeed. Even in this fiction-crowded world.<\/em><\/p>\n And, look, I\u2019ve said it before and I\u2019ll say it again:<\/p>\n You have to write what you love. It\u2019s that simple. Write what you love.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve almost never written a book I haven\u2019t wanted to write. (The exception? The second book in a two-book non-fiction deal for Fourth Estate, when they were unbelievably slow about actually defining what they wanted. I wanted to get that second delivered, so I could move onto other things, and honestly, I\u2019d have written about anything at all. A history of teaspoons? The life cycle of tapioca? I\u2019d have written about anything at all.)<\/p>\n There are chunks of the self-pub market \u2013 in romance especially \u2013 where books are written by people who just don\u2019t care. Those books are often expertly marketed and sold and the principals involved make money, but that\u2019s an exception. On the whole, DM Costa is absolutely right that successful books emerge from passion. As they should.<\/p>\n So write what you love.<\/strong><\/p>\n But most of you will also want to get published and sold and find readers. That\u2019s a good ambition \u2013 and it\u2019s one I completely share. The ambition is liberating too, because if you make enough money from writing, you can give up your day job and then your hobby becomes what you do for a living. That\u2019s the dream \u2013 and it\u2019s one I\u2019ve lived.<\/p>\n But publishing is an industry. There\u2019s a market for books. If you write without any thought of what the market actually wants, you do risk being stuck with something beautiful \u2013 but unsaleable.<\/p>\n So I\u2019d urge you to think more broadly. There isn\u2019t just one project you love. There are dozens. First-time writers can sometimes get so close to the nuts and bolts of the project they\u2019re working on right now this minute that they forget all the other amazing stories that could occupy them.<\/p>\n If I were to list the books that I\u2019d love to write, or start writing, in 2021, they\u2019d certainly include:<\/p>\n And that\u2019s the short version of my list. That\u2019s the list of books that I actually want to start (or finish) writing without delay. I don\u2019t even let myself dream too widely, because I could so easily get hooked on other projects as well. (I have a brilliantly mad project about Donald Trump that I actually started writing at one point, but it was really pretty bananas and, in any case, the time for it has passed. Oh, and I\u2019d love to do a somewhat fictionalised biography of somebody famous, but written in dozens of different contributory voices. And I\u2019ve got a lightly magical children\u2019s book that could easily entice me. And \u2026)<\/p>\n How will I choose which among these projects I should pursue?<\/p>\n Mostly, I\u2019ll let the market guide me. If I think I could make proper money from the Lev story, I\u2019d write it. If that book were to end up being just for me, I probably wouldn\u2019t bother.<\/p>\n So as well as this rule \u2013 write what you love \u2013 I\u2019d like to offer you this one too:<\/p>\n Write what the market wants.<\/strong><\/p>\n Personally, I wouldn\u2019t ever compromise on either thing. And I never have. Not once.<\/p>\n And some of you will already be hurling peanuts at your laptop and yelling, \u201cYou just said you wrote a book for Fourth Estate simply as a way to satisfy a contract. You told me with a straight face<\/em><\/u> that you\u2019d have been willing to write a history of teaspoons as a way to get out and move on.\u201d<\/p>\n And yes. I did say that. And the book that they asked me to write \u2013 a book about global capitalism \u2013 wasn\u2019t one that had ever figured in my lists of books I wanted to write. But within about half a day of starting the project, I got really into it. I loved writing it. My agent loved the manuscript when I delivered it. My editor too. I was very fond of that book for a while.<\/p>\n So write what you love.<\/p>\n And write for the market.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t think of that as a compromise. It\u2019s not a compromise. Every book you write should have your heart and soul and personal artistic spin on every page. And you are a big enough person \u2013 a broad enough artist \u2013 that you have multiple projects inside you. They\u2019re all wonderful. You have the capacity to love each one. But how you choose among them? It\u2019s OK to think about the market. That\u2019s not selling out. That\u2019s giving yourself space to make a career and make a life out of this game.<\/p>\n That\u2019s all from me. You\u2019ll hear from me again next week, but then not until January, because I shall be making a mince pie bigger than my head and then eating it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last week, I spoke about fashion and literary hemlines. I talked about the overreaction that tends to set in during these swings and suggested some techniques for ensuring your work has the flexibility to adapt. I got a lot of interesting responses, as I always do, but one theme stood out. I\u2019ll put this in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29292],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-harrys-friday-email"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n