My Genre and the Writer's Market

     As a writer, most of us generally write about something that we get an idea about.  This is fine, but not always the way to go.  There are some categories of writing that do better than others.  So to know what the writer's market is buying is extremely important to a writer who wants to be profitable with what they are currently writing.

          The genre I generally write in is ROMANCE.  This is a highly in demand genre, but it is also problematic because of the oversaturation of the Romance Market. The percentage of women who read romance is 84%, and the percentage of men who read this genre is 16% as of this writing.  To be successful today writing in the romance genre you have to lean on what is popular.  The romance that is highly popular today is Shapeshifter Romances and Vampire/Werewolf Romances.  I'm sorry to say that I really don't have any desire to write in that area of romance, and this is probably why I am a struggling Indie author.  My romance stories are generally contemporary fiction and fall into the category of couples with issues who find each other.  (Basically, the relationships are messy and complicated, but love always finds a way to persevere through many twist and turns).

     Take one of my past stories: "The Shattered Pieces of Shay".  This story was inspired by a soap opera that drove me crazy with a particular storyline.  I decided to write a story that was totally opposite from this one and fix all the problems with the storyline with my own rendition of how I thought the story should go.

     This is what authors do.  We basically find our ideas through various means.  Some of my books actually come from dreams that I have.  

     I did actually try my hand at writing in the Romance/ Erotica category since I had heard that erotica was selling generally well.  The book I wrote is called:  "The Ugly Side of Paradise".  And, of course, erotica is also an overly-saturated market as well, and hence I have struggles selling any books in this genre as well.

     So the life of an author can be extremely challenging with not knowing what in the Writer's Market will be hot and what is not.  So what is a writer to do?  You can write exactly to what is hot in the market and hope for the best, or you can continue writing what you believe in and also hope for the best.  I believe that no two readers are alike in what they like to read, so I say first, write a good, intriguing story, and then cross your fingers and hope that the audience of readers will be there to read it. This is what I hope for every day. So far this hasn't happened, but I've decided to just keep writing and to not ever think about giving up ever again like I thought about several times in the past.

     In my next blog entry, I'm going to talk about whether it is a good idea to use a pen name or not.

     So Stay Tuned!

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