[This post is an elaboration on several themes I’ve presented in earlier writing posts, my little course on writing fiction, in particular. BTW, I’ve compiled the lessons from that course into a PDF. You can receive it for free just for the asking. Note that I don’t keep your email addressed. My newsletter, out most Fridays, is completely online.]

I suppose “gurus” (agents, editors, publishers, PR and marketing experts, and even other authors) have been telling authors for decades (maybe centuries?) that the key to having a successful book is “writing to market.”  In our internet age, it’s almost become a mantra or an idol to worship and pray to. Many successful books prove it’s a false idol. Sure, authors can jump on a bandwagon.  (I don’t know how many stories about young magicians, mysteries titled Gone Something, or space operas that almost plagiarize Star Wars, itself almost a plagiarism, are out there).  That bandwagon might even carry them along to some success as far as book sales go.  But the whole thing just reminds me of those cute little lemmings that often commit mass suicide.

The counter to this sophistic advice from so-called gurus can run from the practical to the idealistic.  Let’s start with this quote: “Your best marketing is a book that sparks enthusiastic word of mouth….”—Mark Coker, Smashwords founder. On the surface, “writing to market” seems to mesh quite well with that, but that’s the wrong interpretation.  “Writing to market” implies there are already successful books out there you should emulate.  Coker’s advice is directed to how YOU can create a NEW market, getting people to talk and write about your book.  “It’s just like X’s” doesn’t create a market for your book; it’s an admission that you write parasitic literature that’s not original.

Tom Clancy, William Golding, J. K. Rowling, Hugh Howey, and Andy Weir offer five examples of successful authors who created new markets, or at least revived old ones.  Clancy’s Hunt for Red October almost wasn’t published, but it led to a revival of espionage/militaristic thrillers—he oiled the wheels and started that bandwagon rolling again.  Golding’s Neuromancer created that new sci-fi subgenre cyberpunk—the “punk bandwagon” seems more like an infectious disease nowadays with many other punk versions (steampunk seems big at the moment).  Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philospher’s Stone almost didn’t find a publisher either, but the series became so successful and Rowling’s attempts to break into another genre with a pen name such a flop, she’s returned to that wonderful wizard boy.

The first three authors were traditionally published.  They had no options, not even Rowling (the first Harry Potter book came out in 1997 when indie books were still in their POD infancy).  Howey and Weir started as indies and proved their mettle as indies, resulting in traditional publishers wanting to get on THEIR bandwagon!  Howey’s Wool revived the post-apocalyptic subgenre of sci-fi and Weir’s The Martian revived hard sci-fi.  I say “revived” because the first was big during the Cold War and the second has been lost in the high noise level of Star Wars fantasy and the Star Trek juggernaut’s cartoon science.  You can easily tell these books launched their own bandwagons, though—the first book has 12,054 reviews last time I looked, the second 27,608—even if you call them American Idol-like product reviews and wonder what more can be said after 100 or so, that’s incredible!  (Or, maybe it’s just that readers jump on bandwagons too and want the world to know about it?)

Revivals count as creating a new market when there’s a gap of many years between successes.  Note that I’m not saying any of the above books are necessarily meritorious.  Considering only the most recent ones, Howey’s book goes into excruciating detail where none is needed; it’s soap operatic segments that often contain repetitive material are painfully obvious in the “omnibus” edition where the segments became “parts” to a novel.  Moreover, Aldiss’s Starship is basically the same and better story as Wool.  Weir’s book also goes into excruciating detail, this time technical (or agricultural?), about a manned expedition to Mars leaving someone stranded there.  I prefer Verne’s treatise on undersea flora and fauna, 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, to Weir’s treatise on potato farming.

But try to remember the so-called literary works acclaimed by critics during the years the above books appeared (maybe even Nobel Prize winners).  I can’t, but, to be fair, I don’t read books in that catch-all “literary” bin where unfocused, academic, and boring books tend to land—Margaret Atwood’s and Cormac McCarthy’s books and certain bios and memoirs are about as close as I come, because the others just don’t entertain me.  I view writing and especially fiction as entertaining storytelling.  The latter started out as an oral tradition practiced by master storytellers long before printing presses were invented (those Irish monks who transcribed the classics by hand, preserving Western civilization, didn’t do works of fiction beyond those classics—the true entertainers were out roaming the countryside, not in a monastery, so there was never a monkish Tom Clancy).

Let’s return to topic.  Here are three more quotes: “Write the book the way it should be written, then give it to somebody to put in the commas and shit.”—Elmore Leonard. “I don’t over-intellectualize the production [writing] process.  I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.”—Tom Clancy. “For a long time now, I have tried simply to write the best I can.  Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.”—Ernest Hemingway. Taken as advice to writers, none of these three are talking about “writing to market.”  They’re talking about writing a GOOD STORY.  I’m not saying you can’t jump on an already existing bandwagon and write a good story.  But that tired old adjective “good” contains a wide breadth of meaning when it comes to writing, and original, interesting, unique and so forth are all part of it.

Note that I’m not talking about genre here.  Although certain genres wax and wane in popularity (right now romance and erotica are huge—count me out), and “writing to market” could be interpreted as jumping on a genre bandwagon too, genres are just useful categories bookstores and libraries have invented to shelve the books they sale.  They don’t even belong in Coker’s ebook world, although Smashwords, Amazon, and other ebook retailers continue to use them because most readers are still sipping their sodas through genre-straws.  Eventually that will change.  Fiction, and maybe even some non-fiction like bios and memoirs, will focus on Clancy’s “damned story” because the story is the thing.  Even a good play or poem has to tell a good story.

Two final quotes: “Be yourself.  Everyone else is taken.”—Oscar Wilde. “Better to write for yourself and have no public, than write for the public and have no self.”—Cyril Connolly.  I’m not sure Wilde, an Irishman of English descent, was speaking to writers.  Connolly, an Englishman (of Irish descent) who enjoyed the company of George Orwell as a young man, definitely was.  This is the idealism I promised that stands “write to market” on its head.  It has defined my entire writing life.  I would only add that I write the kind of books I like to read—sci-fi, mystery, and thrillers, for the most part—and generally think, albeit immodestly I suppose, that what I write is just as good as what I’ve read and more original in themes, plot, and characters.

But I’ve NEVER had one successful book.  That sets me up as a prime target for that “write to market” shotgun blast in the face so ubiquitous among the writing world’s pundits.  But don’t worry.  I won’t succumb to the sophism.  My advice: you shouldn’t either!  We should be true to ourselves and strive to tell good, original stories.  Mine generally don’t respect those genre boundaries very well; they generally avoid those popular bandwagons; and they all treat themes you will rarely find anywhere else.  I realize some will be better than others.  I also know I might never have a successful book.  I’m close to running out of money for publishing my stories too.  But I’ll never stop telling them because I’m addicted to storytelling.  I hope that keeps you going too.

***

“Clones and Mutants” on sale.  Some authors bundle a series or part of a series.  Here’s an alternative: from now until July 1, all three books in the “Clones and Mutants Trilogy” are on sale AT SMASHWORDS, $0.99 for each ebook, reduced from $2.99.  The clones make their appearance in Full Medical (coupon code VJ44L) as part of a complex government conspiracy, they combine forces with the mutant in Evil Agenda (coupon code LE48D) to thwart another plot, and they save the world in No Amber Waves of Grain (coupon code PZ86X).  These aren’t comic book characters like X-Men—they’re real people who work to halt an apocalyptic future.  Use the links and go directly to Smashwords to enter the coupon codes and get hours of summer reading for only $3.  (Amazon addicts, did you know Smashwords also does .mobi files for your Kindle? They handle all popular ebook formats.) Pass the word about this sale to your relatives and friends.

In libris libertas….

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