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Your goal as a writer is to get published. Probably. If you’re one of those people who writes solely for love of the craft, then more power to you. You’re a better man than I. Most of you want to see your name on the shelf in a bookstore, though.

It’s difficult at best, nearly impossible at worst. Your inclination is to try to write for the market, to try to guess what agents or publishers want to see and give them that.

Don’t do it.

Publishing Lead Time Is At Least A Year

It’s the Internet age, you say. Things move at the speed of cat memes. If the hot thing right now is sparkly vampires, then you’re going to write the best damn sparkly vampire story you can, so you can dip your ladle into the river of money that is publishing.

Despite what you may have heard, or thought, or felt in your bones, publishing is still a very plodding industry. From the moment a publisher accepts your manuscript, you have at least a year until publication. Sometimes two years. That sparkly vampire story on the shelves now? It got the green light twelve to twenty-four months ago.

What’s Hot Now Is Cold To Agents And Publishers

By the time you – a publishing outsider – notice a trend, that trend is already old and stale as far as the publishing insiders see it. They don’t want your sparkly vampire story, they’ve already seen thousands of them in the past two years. Your attempt, no matter how well-done, isn’t going to rise to their notice.

That’s not to say that there isn’t a chance your story will break through. Just like there’s a chance you’ll win the lottery if you buy a ticket twice a week. But you’re probably not that lucky.

Writing For The Market Is Cynical

I know. A cynical writer. What a concept…

But seriously, if you try to write for the market you’re not going to do your best work. If you’re passionate about your project that will show up in your finished product. If you have a story you absolutely need to get out of you and onto paper, your readers will be able to tell. Your work will reflect your sincerity.

If you’re not all that into sparkly vampires, and if you think deep down they’re stupid and wrong (I mean, what kind of vampire is sparkly in the sunlight?), your vampire story is going to be terrible. Not to say that sparkly vampire stories aren’t terrible from jump street, but yours will never rise above the level of background noise. You’ll be spending a lot of effort for what is almost guaranteed to be zero return.

Don’t Be One Of A Crowd

Writers who try to write for the market think they’re the only ones doing so. This is the curse of a solitary passion. You never have office buildings full of writers who talk about writing during lunch breaks. We almost all work alone, and we think the ideas we have are unique. Fresh. Never been done.

If you try to write for the market, you’re just one more hack trying to cash in on a trend. That’s not to say there aren’t very successful hacks cashing in every moment of every day. If you want to be one of them, step up your game. Get good at it. Lead the pack of hacks. Be the alpha hack.

If you want to do good work, if you want to have your contribution be worthy and noticed and appreciated, leave the market-chasing to the desperate writers. The ones who have no confidence in their ability to tell a story. The ones who need someone else to tell them what a good story is. There’s plenty of those writers out there. Don’t join them. Hoe your own row.

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It’s been a week now that my novel has been available. It’s been delivered electronically, and is slowly arriving by mail, courier, or owl in for those who pre-ordered a physical copy. I’m getting positive feedback, and that’s always gratifying.

So what does it feel like? Having my baby out in the world?

I wish I could tell you. In a grand irony, I’m at a loss for words right now. It’s all too new. I’m excited, of course, and a little frightened, and more than a little curious, and eager, and reluctant… There’s no word for all those things wrapped up together. Maybe in German. Germans have words for lots of questionable, ill-defined feelings.

I am confident I did as good a job as I could, and I’m confident that my publisher was just as interested in putting out a good product as I was. As far as execution goes, I have no problems, questions, or issues. I hope my readers don’t see any of the effort and just enjoy a good story, told well.

I guess that would be a feeling, right? Hope? The feeling that I want readers to enjoy what I’ve done? Anticipation?

What’s next? I’ll keep writing the sequel to this novel, and try to get good at marketing. My publisher is doing their part for marketing, obviously, but I have as big a part to play as they do. I guess I’m not nearly as confident about marketing as I am my ability to tell a story.

What about a marketing goal? Well… I do have one. For years I lived two blocks down from the best independent bookstore in the world, Vroman’s in Pasadena, CA. They have authors speak all the time, and as I was honing my craft, I thought I would know I’d made it when I had a speaking gig at Vroman’s. Fingers crossed it happens one day. If anybody knows someone in charge at Vroman’s pass the word.

I wish I had a better handle on this. I’ll be sure to let everyone know when my thoughts clarify more. Until then here’s Stubby Kaye stopping the show with ‘Sit Down You’re Rocking The Boat.’ Because it makes me happy.