It's Insecure Writer's Support Group day! If you'd like to join, GO HERE.
The awesome co-hosts for the August 3 posting of the IWSG are Tara Tyler, Lisa Buie Collard, Loni Townsend, and Lee Lowery! Also, many thanks to our host, Alex Cavanaugh.
The optional question for August 3: When you set out to write a story, do you try to be more original or do you try to give readers what they want?
Hmmm, I don't do either. Generally I get an idea about a story and then I go with it because it's what I want to write. I don't think about if it's original or not, or whether it's what the readers want.
Which brings up something interesting. I recently took a free seminar in which the instructor basically said not to write what you want, but what the readers expect. Deliver the book that you promised and the books will sell themselves. No ads or social media required.
I know, I know, hard to believe.
But I get what she was saying. Design the book to sell itself. Readers are looking for certain things within the genre and we need to give it to them. The genre/subgenre tropes, the title, the description, delivery of the promised hook, the plot points, the stakes.
Deliver to the reader what they want, and via word of mouth, the books will sell themselves. Huh.
Easier said than done, to be sure. But thinking on it, this could be why my books don't sell. They are not designed properly, because I don't hit all the expected marks. I mean, I read Save the Cat so this shouldn't be a revelation to me, but it kind of is. Because I'm still writing what I want, rather than treating writing books like a business out to make money.
Don't get me wrong, we should all write what we want. But I think I can do both if I put my mind to it.
Do you pay particular attention to the tropes/plot points, etc., so that they fall where they should?
Or do you just write and let things fall where they may?
What are your thoughts on books selling themselves?
