Make Money Writing to Market

Writing what people want to read is the way to go…

Whenever I ask the writing community on Twitter about lucrative book genres, best selling topics and market trends, I get some helpful responses, including top selling genres and trending topics.

Then the “write what you want!” crowd wade in, with the message that writing for market (and for money) is somehow unethical, wrong, and doomed to failure because it’s not necessarily your first choice of subject. There seems to be a view that if you write what people want to read, you’re letting yourself down. That it’s detrimental to the creative process.

Apparently we should forget about what sells and write for the love of it. This, even though many of my fellow authors are considering quitting, because their books don’t sell.

Meanwhile, some are moving onto Medium, because of the financial rewards and immediate gratification of seeing your reads soar!

We all want to do well

I think we all want to do well really — whether we’re writing books, blogs or articles. I know chasing markets can be difficult — they change faster than you can write. But at the same time, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with writing to meet market demand.

I’ve been writing professionally for the past decade. I make a living writing for magazines, and of course, I’m constantly pitching ideas, hoping to sell stories and articles that people want to read. But I’d like to get away from begging magazine editors for the next job, and I’d like to create more books that people actually want to read.

I’ve tried writing what I want

Of course I write what I want — I’ve written an apocalyptic novel that I started over 30 years ago, a funny book on guinea pigs, a travel book about Scotland, and a load of writing books. I’ve sold over 1000 copies across the range, but none of the individual titles have sold even 200 copies.

My point is, writing for yourself only gets you so far. If you want to see sales soar, then writing what people want to read works better.

Writing for market works!

Writing for market is what I do for magazines — I write what editors want to buy and what their readership wants to read. I’m paid well for writing for market.

It works on Medium too — if you write what people want to read, your blogs get more reads and you’re paid more. It’s no surprise that many of the stories that do well on Medium are about how to make money on Medium.

Now to apply this to books… If I find a niche in literature that sells better, it will enable me to be less dependent on magazines, and more self-sufficient. It will also take my career in a direction I’d be very happy for it to go.

So when I query whether I should be writing in different genres, and people ask, ‘do you want to?’ — not particularly, but I do want to sell books. I might enjoy writing in a genre that’s outside of my usual comfort zone. I might learn something. I might become a huge success, and what’s wrong with flexing your writing muscles in different genres anyway?

Experimenting in different genres makes life interesting!

In my magazine writing career, I’ve written about war, druidry, pets, wild animals, cooking, and lots more. It doesn’t mean I’m an expert, or even particularly interested in some of them, but they’re all different, and that makes life interesting.

I was writing about off shore wind farms yesterday, and about the Leprosy Mission the day before. I’ve learnt a lot by writing in different subjects for an incredibly diverse array of magazines and newspapers.

So let’s apply this to books. Apparently the market for self-help books is solid — I have flops in that niche too, but I also have a good idea for a new self-help book. So it’s good to know that the niche as a whole is doing well. Perhaps my next self-help book will be a big hit.

I’d heard about incredible sales in erotica — should I be getting kinky, I asked? Replies were very mixed, but honestly, it might be fun. I’m not ruling anything out.

Sales drive motivation and ambition

So yes, write what you want, but don’t dismiss people who want to write for market. With all the demoralised complaining about low book sales on Twitter, writing what people want to buy might actually have some merit, and provide a degree of satisfaction that you’ll never get from a book that doesn’t sell.

Seeing sales roll in gives you confidence too. Knowing that my work sells in magazines gives me confidence that it’s good. The fact that editors sometimes ask me to write about something that doesn’t interest me is a compliment, not a flaw. That’s reassuring when your books aren’t selling, because the fact that you’ve written things that do sell well, means it’s *not* because you’re a bad writer.

Writing for market is OK. And your writing will get better with practice too, so when you’re ready to complete that novel, you’re better placed to do it and succeed.