Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Wednesday's Writer's Tip - Knowing The Markets


Knowing the market is one of the musts of being a writer, but there are times when knowing the market doesn't work. So what does this mean. There are a number of factors to look at when you're writing your story. So let's look at them.

The age of the characters. Stories with younger characters tend to sell better than those with aging characters. The sex of the characters. Now this depends on your chosen genre pr the audience the writer is seeking to sell to. Settings and the choice of one depends on the chosen audience. Categories or genre writing. Here the audience are often fans and they're widely red. Taking a trite story line unless there are twists might make for few readers. Treatment means whether you write light and bright or dark and violent. There are areas where one form works and others where they don't.

But here's the trick. In a quote from John D MacDonald. "A book written for one publishing house has little chance of acceptance at that house. A book written for oneself, , the toughest one-man audience a writer can have, has a good chance of acceptance anywhere."

So the moral of the story is to know the markets and also to write the book you'd like to read. Someone will buy it and who knows, you might end up with the gold ring of success.

2 comments:

Melissa Keir said...

I agree with that. Write the book you want to read and someone will pick it up. If not, at least you've written something that will make you happy!

Sheila Claydon said...

So true Janet...thanks for the reminder.