Who Creates the Market?

There's an interesting article in this month's issue of Romantic Times Bookclub (RTB) by agent Denise Marcil entitled Secrets of Long-Term Success. She had some great advice, but one section in particular jumped at me.

Keep Up with the Marketplace: This doesn't mean you should write whatever is popular just because it's in vogue. However, readers' tastes change and publishing houses follow trends. They don't set them. Authors set the trends.

Authors set the trends. That's an important statement.

We have to think about the recent trends we've seen in the romance genre. Paranormal is spicy hot right now - so is erotica (and I won't get into RWA's "graphic guidelines" here) and Regency historicals. Chick-lit keeps getting bigger and better.

But ten years ago, what was the trend? To be honest, I didn't read a lot of romance back then - I was still in undergrad school and I didn't have much time for reading, other than textbooks. But when I was in high school, the bestsellers were the big, juicy historicals. Johanna Lindsey. Rebecca Brandewyne. Ellen Tanner Marsh. Penelope Neri. Locales encompassed a variety of locations - Colonial America, the American Civil War, Medieval England and Scotland - the list was endless.

So what happened? Why did the market shift? I'm pretty sure a lot of the readers out there didn't stop reading - or did they?

In my opinion, and I could be wrong, someone wrote something new, exciting, and fresh. And people gobbled it up. The first person to write a vampire paranormal romance started something.

But here is my point. Do you think the authors who sat at home and wrote these break-out books knew they would be break-out books? Of course not. They wrote what they wanted to write.

In so doing, they created a market.

Denise Marcil's observation couldn't be more correct. Authors set the trend.

So go ahead. Write the book you want to write - and maybe, just maybe, the market might come to you.