013: Should You Write a Book Based on Trends?

It's tempting to take inspiration from trendy and popular books and think that if you write a similar book, success is guaranteed. But is this a good idea? Should you write based on what's trendy?

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SHould you write a book based on trends?

Hi, friend, I'm recording this sitting at my desk looking out the window at snow coming down. I live in Tennessee, so it snows like a couple times a year and we are getting like, I don't know, five or six inches today, which is a lot. It's basically enough to shut down the entire city. So it's been really pretty to just watch this all day coming down. I have a very short tolerance for snow, I like it for about 24 hours, it's really pretty. And then I'm like done. I just can't stand the cold, I want it gone. So. But thankfully this, I don't think this snow will stick around too long. Tomorrow supposed to be cold. But I think after that it'll be melted. Anyways, that's my my view as I'm recording this. This episode is going to talk about writing a book based on trends writing a book based on the market. There are a lot of different ways to think about this. And there are camps of people who say that, yes, this is a good strategy to use, especially if you're self publishing. And you can get books in the hands of readers quicker than it makes sense to sort of time the market and write something based on what's trendy. There are also people who say, do not do this, this is not a good strategy to use, like you should write what you want to write and screw what the market is doing. Screw what's trendy, write the book that you want to write the by the book that you are just on fire, to get onto the page and to get into the hands of readers. And like a lot of things, I fall somewhere in the middle? Because there's no right answer in terms of like the strategy to use.

So what I'm going to do in this episode is explain my thought process give you some things to think about whether you are going to be self-publishing, or whether you're going to be pursuing traditional publishing. And if you're not sure, if you're new to writing journey, you've just started writing your book, and you're like, I have no idea what you're even talking about with publishing. Don't worry, this is just some stuff to, like I said to think about. Okay, should you write a book based on trends, I think it's so important to do your research, as a writer, not extensive research to the point where you're putting off writing your book, because you're reading and Googling and whatever. But it's important to be aware of what's being written in the genre that you're writing in, or that you want to write in. Getting an understanding of the kinds of books that are being published, if there are trends that you can identify things that readers are maybe going to be expecting. It's just kind of a good business practice, right to do some market research. Now, if you're just someone who's writing a book, because you want to write a book, and you're maybe sharing it with your family and friends, but you don't want to publish it, of course, this step doesn't matter.

But if you do want to get it into the hands of readers, at some point, this is a good idea to just do some market research. And there are a few different ways you can do this, you can read, obviously, in the genre that you're going to be writing and read recent books read newer books that have been written in the last few years, to get an idea of where the kind of landscape is for the genre. You can also listen to podcasts with our authors and writers who have published in the last year or two. You can look at bestseller lists to see the kinds of books that are doing really well whether that's on traditional publishing lists, like I don't know, the New York Times bestselling list, or Amazon like look at different categories in Amazon and see okay, what's the number one or number of top five books in this? You know, subcategory? Like what's selling? So all of that is market research, right? When we think about book trends, you know, the example that always comes to mind for me is in young adult and like young adult fantasy. I mean, think of when Twilight was written in 2006 or something. I'm googling it as I'm recording this to see what it was written. Twilight book 2005 Okay. So right after Twilight came out there was this explosion of vampire books, right? There was like this hunger that readers had for vampire books. And also it kind of spilled over into movies and TV shows as well. But really in books, there was this hunger for vampire stories. So in traditional publishing, there were a lot of vampire books coming out. There was also that like, dystopian craze in young adult fiction, maybe, I don't know, 10 years ago or so. Now, if you read young adult fantasy, there's a lot of Fe you know, characters and stories that have to do with, with fe. So they're just these constant cycles of books that do really well, there's a hunger for them from from readers, lots of books come out that deal with with that certain subject or topic. And then things kind of shift and move on. And it doesn't mean that you can't write a book like, for example, if you're thinking oh, I wrote a book about vampires, but it's not 2005 anymore. Of course, that's still fine.

There's always going to be a reader base for stories about vampires, especially if you're doing it in a slightly different way. But it is something to consider. But when you're doing traditional publishing, remember that first you have to find an agent, then after you find an agent, you're probably going to do some edits on your manuscript, then you're going to send it out to on submission to editors, then you're going to do multiple rounds of revision with that editor at that publisher. And then the book has to be printed. And I mean, it takes the process could take like several years. So if you are trying to time that and you think okay, well, Fay stories are really big in young adult right now, let me write a fate story. Your book might not be published till 2025. And then 2025, the landscape might have shifted, and all of a sudden, something new is really trendy and, and publishers are gobbling up books about something else. So you never want to just have that be your sole motivation for why you're writing something, especially in traditional publishing, because it does move so slow. Now, with self publishing, like I mentioned before, it's a little bit different, because you can publish things quicker, you're not waiting for this big behemoth, you know, publisher organization to kind of spin its wheels slowly, and there's not gatekeepers in the forms of agents and editors, you don't have to deal with any of that you can just, you know, put your book on Amazon and have it available to people in an ebook form fairly quickly.

But my belief is why I think it's important to be somewhere in the middle is yes, it's good to do market research and have an understanding of what types of books are selling. But really, you have to write the book that you want to write. Writing a book solely based on trends, if it's not something you're lit up and excited about, I think readers can tell. I think if you're just following a formula and checking boxes, because it's done out of obligation, I don't think the energy behind it is going to be the same, as opposed to you being so in love with your story. You know, really motivated to finish it really just in love with your characters and you having this sense, the sense of excitement about it. That's a totally different energy. And I do think readers can tell, even if it's a subconscious sort of being able to tell that something is different about book A versus book B. So I did some research, especially with my first book, because that was when I was trying to find an agent. You know, I kind of wanted to understand, like, where, because I wasn't even sure what genre to call my book. It wasn't thriller, it wasn't romance, it wasn't fantasy. I just wasn't really sure what to call it. And so I tried to read a lot of other stories that dealt with family secrets and alcoholism and, you know, dynamics between mothers and daughters and grandmothers and just stories that were kind of similar. And I, I did that partly because I wanted to, you know, include some some comp titles in my query letter to my agent, if you're not familiar with that comp titles are books that are, were published in the last couple of years that let the agent know, kind of where your book fits in. So you say here are you know, here's some comparable titles that have been published in the last few years. Generally, you give like two examples.

So I needed to find some comp titles. That's partly why I did the research. But I also just wanted to understand how these books were being marketed, how they were being written. Not to take inspiration from it because I already knew what my story idea was, but it just kind of helped me wrap my head around where my book might fit in, on the shelf. And then of course cosmic joke of the universe's covid happened. And the editor who was interested in my book got laid off. So that book did not sell. But that's okay. It was still good. I'm so glad I did that, that prep and that research. And my second book it has like a slight thriller element to it. So I did a little bit of research on thrillers and not like intense crime stories, because that's not what mine is. But just like thrillers, women's fiction, slash thrillers, to kind of understand how they were, who the reader base was, and how they were being written about, and just stuff like that. But I again, I did that after I had already had my story idea. So it wasn't like I was looking for ideas or anything. So that was kind of my, my process. And I think I think I just wanted to make sure also that there was a market for the type of story that I wanted to tell. And doing that market research helped me realize that yes, there is with my first book, even though it didn't get published.

There's a market for stories about families and about mother daughter relationships and about alcoholics. And with my second book, there's, there's a market for what that's about as well. So it was kind of just good to know that this idea would be the ideas would be marketable, you know? So, again, there's no, I don't think there's a right answer in terms of like writing solely for the market versus writing the book that you want to write. Ideally, there should be some combination of the two. There are people who write for the market, they take an idea that's trendy, and they say, Okay, let me run with this, I know there's going to be a market for it, I know this is going to be appealing to readers, and they write a book. And I don't want to make it sound like I'm diminishing that I think that's great. That's a great way to approach writing. It's a very practical way to approach writing. My hope is that if you are listening to this, and it's something that you decide to do that you just make sure that you are feeling creatively inspired by the work that you're doing. Because when, when I try for myself, for example, when I try to force myself to write something I don't want to write, it's hard. And it sort of takes the fun out of writing. And I say fun, sometimes it's annoying. Getting the first draft out for me is terrible.

I almost have a love hate relationship with the first draft. But overall writing should be fun and feel like an enjoyable creative process. And if it doesn't, because you're only writing what you think you should write, then that's something to look at. But I think only writing the story you want to tell and ignoring your market is a mistake as well, because you're not going to know who the reader base is, you're not going to know how to market it to people you're not going to know like kind of where it fits in, similar to other books on the shelf. So, again, I think somewhere in the middle is the best best place to be. Alright, I hope this gave you some good food for that. And I'll see you next week.

Katie Wolf