Q: Publishers and agents usually ask you to compare your book to somebody else’s and want to know that you are up to date on what is popular at the moment. How much importance do you place in writing for the market?
-from Susan
Some agents are more tightly tied to today’s snapshot of what they think will sell to the acquiring editors they are closest to. But if your book is sold to a house, it will take 18 months to get to market anyway, during which the current trend may have changed to something new. Agents come to work to sell books. I get it. But I always admire the book that doesn’t fit into a pre-defined sub-genre, but pushes the margins a bit without confusing me completely. I am guessing those might be harder to sell, but I admire the courage and tenacity of the agents who love the book and won’t give up on it.
This week’s question is really, how much importance I, as the writer, place in writing for the market. I want to sell my books, too, but I write what I want to write. It helps that what I write hews fairly close to a defined genre that usually sells well. But in the past I have been nudged by an agent or editor closer to the conventional form of that sub-genre than I wanted to be. For my first French village books, I politely resisted a suggestion that I include recipes, for example. The great dishes of Burgundy are well known and if anyone wants to know how to make Boeuf Bourguignon, for example, two clicks on Google and you have three recipes that are actually only slightly varied from each other. Who needs me to steal Julia Child’s recipe and pretend it’s mine?
Of course, I want my books to appeal to readers, to meet their expectations. But for me what is or should be popular in the market all the time is a great story, told well, with characters that come to life, in a setting that those readers want to visit from the comfort of their living room chair. I’m as “up to date” on what’s popular as anyone else, but – heresy – I am not always impressed by the bestsellers on the New York Times lists. Here are a few books of the past few years that I loved that were in the crime fiction genre but definitely pushed out from that, challenged and delighted me. Kudos to the authors, their agents, and their publishers!
WHAT IS TIME TO A PIG – John Straley (Soho)
PLAY THE RED QUEEN – Juris Jurjevics (Soho)
THE TWELVE – Stuart Neville (Penguin/RH UK)
SUICIDE PILOT – Colin Cotterill (Soho)
I notice that these are all men and that most are with Soho, but that’s just coincidence, top of mind today. Remember when this now wildly popular book was new…and who was this unusual young woman anyway?
MAISIE DOBBS – Jacqueline Winspear (Penguin)
"what is or should be popular in the market all the time is a great story, told well, with characters that come to life, in a setting that those readers want to visit from the comfort of their living room chair." Exactly. Most of us write the books we write for a miarad of reasons, and all of us, or maybe just me, would love a New York Times Bestseller to slap on the cover. It gives me hope when a book I love becomes a best seller.
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