Tip Tuesday — Screw the Trends

Wow, there sure are a lot of cute pig books books. I should totally write a cute pig book. It’s sure to sell.
I don’t really have any desire to write about vampires, but it looks like that’s what people want to read.
Sex scenes make me feel sick to my stomach, but I think I’ll write some erotica.

pig-308577__340

JUST NO!

Stop it.

I mean it.

Right frigging NOW.

Repeat after me: I shall never write to trends. Now repeat it a zillion times.

Got it? Good.

There are so so many reasons why you should never write to trends or write what you think people want to read. SO MANY. Here’s the two biggies:

  1. It takes a long damn time to write a book, get it edited, proofed, cover art, marketing, formatting. If cute pig books are all the rage now and you decided to jump on that wagon odds are it’ll be a different wagon by the time your little project is ready for human consumption.
  2. If you have ZERO interest in writing a cute pig book, it’s going to be a painful experience for you and the writing will be hard and painful and most likely flat. Readers will be able to tell that you only wrote the book to make money. (And honestly, if you’re in this writing gig to make the big dolla bills, you need to rethink things.)

Your writing mantra should always be I will write what I want. Write books that you want to write. That make you super excited to get the words out. Books that excite you.

Otherwise, what’s the point?

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