Back in September, I went to a seminar given by Libbie Hawker, the author of Take Off Your Pants, the most wonderful and most straightforward outlining book I’ve ever found. The talk was excellent.
After the talk, I came home and wrote a post in the Facebook group 20 Books to 50K, asking if her methods could actually work. Here’s my post, and then I’ll summarize the responses I heard:
There was this one part that got me to wondering. Hawker also explained a method for writing to market that had me doubtful and I want to ask if anyone here has tried this. She said what she does is get the $25/month version of Publishers’ Marketplace and look in the daily summaries of deals that agents want to tell the world about, looking specifically for historical fiction novels with “significant” deals ($250k-$500k) and the “major” deals ($500k+). Also she reads over these summaries to look for the settings and tropes mentioned in them. Knowing that the books with the biggest advances are going to be the ones most highly promoted in 18-24 months, she has an idea of what the future “supply” for historical fiction books is going to be. Then she goes to the top 100 amazon books in historical fiction now to see what the top tropes and settings are and calls that present “demand.” Overlaying these two patterns, she finds the gaps in future supply and says “in two years there won’t be many historical fiction novels set in ancient times, nor will there be any in the 1920s, and I can fill this gap with self-published books I release in a year.” And she did write these books and they sold very well.
And I heard all this and thought naaaah… I don’t believe it. I mean, I believe she did this research, but I’m thinking the reason the books sold well is because she’s Libbie Hawker and she’s an excellent writer.
Or, I could try it. I could months researching this and determine that the “future gap” in the market is going to be zero-gravity reverse-harem romance and that I need to then figure how many velcro straps are going to be needed to make zero-gravity docking plausible.
Anyone here ever try “beating the market” this way? Did it work?
Now, for some answers. I’m not supposed to copy other people’s stuff in the group, so I’ll paraphrase:
— That sounds more like writing to trend than writing to market, that is, looking at what’s hot right now and coming up with a way to get on that boat. Writing to trend is more about figuring out the expectations that have developed in a sub-genre over the past few years and writing for it.
–One author detailed spotting a shift in historical mysteries going from the 1920s to the Regency Era that coincided with Bridgerton coming out, and she was able to write Regency Era mysteries and benefit from the curve.
–Another author said she’s sick of hearing about “writing to market” and doesn’t try.
–Other authors said that the method of lurking in Publishers’ Market is okay, but since it doesn’t cover self-published authors, it’s not that good.
