Blogger: Michelle Ule
What Writers Can Learn From Kodak
Part 2 of 2
Rachelle Gardner’s excellent blogs earlier this week raised a question in my mind: How does a writer know what readers want and thereby remain marketable?
1. Keep on top of what is selling.
You need to know what readers are purchasing and why. Check on The New York Times Best Seller’s List. How many of the top books have you read, or do you at least know about? Why are they there?
The Help has been made into a movie, Steve Jobs’ biography close to the date he died, Kristin Hannah writes women’s fiction, Heaven is for Real answers a felt need. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo–don’t get me started.
Over on Christianbooks.com, the bestsellers list also includes Heaven is for Real, Courageous, Jesus Calling and a biography of Tim Tebow.
Ask yourself why readers are buying these books. How can you position your projects to meet reader needs or interests? (Your books won’t necessarily appeal to readers for the same reason the best-selling books do, but your books must appeal to a significant group of readers.)
2. Be Aware of How Your Reader Has Changed
Readers are google heads these days–their attention span is short, and they’re reading fast. They don’t read the same way they once did, and your writing needs to both recognize that fact and respond to it. That doesn’t mean you have to water down your content; you just need to be careful how you present it.
For example, I rarely write a paragraph more than four or five sentences long, three is best, because the physical act of looking at all those words on a page with no breaks can turn off a reader. While working on manuscripts for our authors, I routinely put in paragraph breaks. I won’t read a page that doesn’t have at least three paragraphs. (This isn’t just a reaction against having to read Ulysses in college . . . )
Depending on the genre, some readers prefer shorter chapters. They probably need more white space on the page. Subheadings, boxes and other visuals serve to keep the attention of readers used to jumping around on web pages.
3. Consider the Reading Medium.
While 75 percent of “books” currently sold in the U.S. are printed on paper, the number is changing rapidly. Publishing analyst Michael Shatzkin believes the percentages will switch within five years until only 20% of books will appear on physical pages. That means in the future, many people will be reading cyber-inked pages on electronic readers. Does that make a difference in how you write or your subject?
If the majority of your readers are teenagers and they’re more likely to read on a smart phone . . . how much material will they read on a smaller screen? Should you consider having auxiliary content like links to websites, trailers, or even photo galleries?
4. Note trends in titles
Look at those best-seller lists again. What types of titles are people using? One syllable? Two word titles beginning with The? Long convoluted titles with subtitles? (This will vary depending on the book’s category–and check out Amazon for the books’ full titles.) Styles come and go even in the title business.
5. Stay in tune with the times.
Novelist Gayle Roper reads People Magazine every week to keep up on current events, entertainment resources and her readers’ potential interests. Googletrends will tell you what people are hunting for on the web at any given hour. This can give you insight into what is important to the world you’re trying to reach with your manuscript.
One businessman I know routinely purchases the latest technological gadget and hands it to his teenager. “I like seeing the creative ways she uses it, and it gives me ideas about businesses I should be investigating.” He recently purchased an i-pad for a four-year-old nephew for the same reason. “I want to know if there’s a market for the interactive kids’ book my friend is writing.”
5.Read and experience entertainment outside your preferred genre.
You need to know what types of stories people are spending their time with. Dystopian novels may not be your interest, but if you’re writing for young adults, you need to know what they’re experiencing in their culture–and it’s probably not Amish fiction.
To creatively address the interests and needs of our society, writers need to know what that culture is.
You can’t be innovative, creative, and cutting edge if you don’t know where or what the edge is.
What am I missing on this list?
What else do writers need to pay attention to?
How do you keep up with culture?
What steps do you think writers need to take to remain marketable in a complex and fast-changing world?
What am I missing on this list?
Social media changes everything. I think you’ve missed that part when assessing what readers want.
As an author, I pay almost no attention to a bestseller list–unless I happen to be on it. I’m not concerned with what any generic reader might want. I’m concerned with what *my* readers want.
I know what they want because they tell me. Every. Single. Day.
What else do writers need to pay attention to?
The marketplace and how new technology is fundamentally shifting the power dynamic. The means of production and distribution have become available, affordable, and accessible to new players. This opens new opportunities for story-tellers in all media.
As you point out, as mobile technology continues to proliferate, markets that would otherwise be unavailable will open up new opportunities for people willing and able to enter them.
How do you keep up with culture?
I don’t. Culture is too ephemeral and ill-defined. It’s also far from homogeneous enough to matter. As Gibson said, “The future is already here. It’s just not uniformly distributed.”
I pursue my own passions and link up with those who share them. That’s more than sufficient to engender interest on the part of a sufficient audience for me to make a living on.
I read in my genre, explore new technologies as they appear, and participate in social media communities that are appropriate to my interests.
What steps do you think writers need to take to remain marketable in a complex and fast-changing world?
I think that depends on what “marketable” means. For me it means selling enough books to make a comfortable living. For that, I follow a simple plan.
Find a niche, connect with it, dig in, hold on and produce as much as you can.
Actually, I don’t think that’s changed much in the last decade or more.
“How do you keep up with the culture?”
As Nathan Lowell said, I don’t. I write the kind of books/articles I like to read, and hope there are a few million people like me out there and that I can find enough of them to make my books successful. I can’t possibly keep up with the culture. I have enough trouble finding time to write. Let the young change as they wish. My culture is set.
A huge readership is not how you describe them in your second point. You describe Gen X-ers and Millenials, not Baby Boomers and older generations. While we are aging, we still buy books in large numbers. We still read sentences with more than 15 words and paragraphs with more than three sentences (or 50 words). We may not read Victorian prose that well, or even Faulkner-type prose, but many of us still read better on pager than on a screen, and to use longer sentences/paragraphs are fine.
Someday we will disappear as a viable market to write to, but I don’t believe that time is now.
I’m going to jump on the first thing Nathan said. I used to browse book shelves to decide what to buy. Now I have a TBR list that’s filled with books I’ve seen featured on blogs, Facebook, etc.
Part of the reason for this change is that I no longer live close to a bookstore. But with the internet and blogs and recommendations on Facebook, I don’t feel like I’m missing those bookstore shelves. I can see a wider range of books online. So I think promoting our books more online is a big change.
Michelle, in a word, your post today was EXCELLENT. You ladies knocked it out of the park this week.
Sorry, Nathan & David… I must respectfully disagree a bit. To “not pay attention to bestseller lists…” Hmmm… There’s a reason those folks are on those lists. And “to not keep up with culture…” Well, a bigger hmmm…
Remaining unaware of today’s culture is a little like poking our heads in the sand.
We can still be “traditonalists” and adhere to our core values AND accept that some change is actually good.
Michelle, I DO keep up with popular culture, not just for reading trends but because I enjoy it. And hey, I’m a reader too. Can I put my finger on why I love UsWeekly’s “What’s in My Purse?” feature? No. Except I’m terribly nosy. I must assume my audience is too!
Loved this post. You and I think a LOT alike!
It’s quite alright, Cynthia. For whatever it’s worth, I don’t disagree with you. I appreciate that my view is not considered mainstream.
It’s probably too strong for me to say I don’t follow “today’s culture.” I’m very plugged in – in a figurative sense – to the new media/social media culture.
I don’t watch TV. I don’t read bestsellers. I rarely go to the movies. I get all my news from the internet — mostly from RSS feeds from Al Jazeera and Reuters. I only read ebooks and read mostly on my smart phone. My books are not on bookshelves, and I’m comfortable with the idea that you can’t buy my book at Walmart or Barnes and Noble. (Do they still have stores?)
There *is* a reason those people are on those lists. I’m not likely to appear there myself for the same reason I probably will never find my name on a PGA Leaderboard.
I’m not playing the same game.
You’ve all raised excellent points while I was in a technology meeting . . . Thank you.
I think it depends on who your target audience is, and you’re correct I did not address them all. Your chances of being published in the general market improve if your project is geared to the type of books currently selling well. Publishing is a business and publishers have to watch the bottom line closely–they tend to be risk averse, as well. That makes selling your project more difficult if it doesn’t fit into a publisher’s specific box.
I am not a big culture maven myself, but I know what Downton Abbey is and I could correctly identify one song Whitney Houston beautifully sang. (I also knew too much about her personal life, but that’s only because I buy groceries and read the headlines while waiting in line). It’s not particularly difficult to stay up on the culture, even if you don’t want to.
I love your description, Nathan, that you’re not playing the same game. As long as you’re fine with that, go with it. (And I’d love to hear your take on the difference between English and Arabic Al Jazeera news).
As for length of paragraphs–I wish it were not true, but some of us have had our hearts broken when people and teenagers we loved turned up their noses at the very first page of Pride and Prejudice!
You don’t have to do any of it; just know the risk you’re taking. Thanks for sharing.
The biggest difference between English and Arabic Al Jazeera is that I don’t read Arabic.
It’s a bit of a liability in that regard. 🙂
What I like about it is that I get a very different perspective on what’s “important” in the world when compared to — say — Reuters or CNN.
🙂
So thought-provoking. I appreciate such a practical numbered list. Thanks!
Love this blog and read it all the time. I always get some great nuggets to think about. I just thought it was funny that I just finished reading “The Stand” Stephen King which is 800+ pages and my daughter is entrenched in the Harry Potter books. Not a lot of white space in either of those books. 🙂
Wow, almost 1500 pages on The Stand, Jenny, brava! But what year was it written (Amazon only lists the latest version)? Same thing with Harry Potter–they last one was released, what? Four years ago?
My point is, reading habits change over time. I was advised at my first writer’s conference to pay attention to current trends. If I was writing the way I liked, I’d be just like Mary Stewart–whose heyday was about the time I was born, mid-last century! 🙂
Thanks for sharing!
I agree with what was said here, Michelle–you ladies rocked this week. So much thought-provoking material.
I got a rude awakening at a writers conference last fall. I had submitted a sample anonymously that was read to a panel of four agents and then commented on (in front conference participants). The agent who represented children’s fiction almost had to hold back her laughter because she felt it didn’t apply to kids today. She actually said, “What is this?” It was an historical piece, but you still need to connect it with modern readers somehow. This is can be a challenge.
I’ve been working more in our schools to keep up with changings in the market. Getting it right from the horse’s mouth is just as useful as reading about trends.
Thanks for the great week of posts.
Oh my. I looked at my post and saw all those typos. Should never try to play mommy and writer at the same time. 🙂
In general, there are occasionally people who have great success by going 180 degrees away from the trends, what’s hot, and what they’re “supposed” to do. They shun conventional wisdom — and it pays off.
I’m not sure if the odds are even more stacked against them then if they followed the crowd, but it might be worth considering, especially if they can’t get excited about doing what everyone else is doing.
Just a thought.