This is terrible advice on two levels. The first is that a lot of writers can't shift outside their normal genre, style, length, etc. on a whim, and it's going to show through if they're creating something just to try to get on the bandwagon. Secondly, though, unless you're Chuck Tingle, you probably can't write anything fast enough to jump on top of a trend before it's gone.
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| Seriously... how the hell does he do it? |
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Seriously... Writing Takes Time!
At minimum, a novel is 50,000 words. These days, though, most novels aim for 75,000+, with genres like sci fi and fantasy regularly going to 100,000 words when the books go to print. Let's be generous, and say that you can write 1,000 words per day... that's not impossible. So if you write a short novel you're going to take 50 days of work, without interruptions... a little bit less than two months. Or if you're going longer, 75 days or 100 days of work... so, 2-3 months for a meatier title.
But that's just the first draft portion!
There's also the scripting that happens beforehand (I usually take a few weeks to lay out the timeline of a novel before I start), as well as revisions getting the book ready for market (which can take another month or two, at best). If you're self-publishing then you have to do the layout, cover art, etc. to make sure your book is ready for the public, and if you're skilled and experienced this can take at least a week to get perfectly right. If you run into technical difficulties, it can take a lot longer. So, under ideal circumstances, you're looking at 2-3 months if you have rapid turnaround... probably closer to 5-6 if you can keep up the pace of that word count... or a year or more for a longer book.
And if you're going with a traditional publisher? There's the submission process (which can take up to a year in some cases), and even once your book has been accepted you're looking at months to multiple years for it to hit the market.
Given the trends these days last for somewhere between 7 hours on the short end, and a couple of months on the long end, authors really do not have time to allow what's currently popular to lead them around by their keyboard.
I gave this same advice for tabletop RPG creators over on the Azukail Games YouTube channel a while back, but I felt it deserved repeating. Because too often we take our shots forgetting that our audience is a moving target... if we aim at where they were, then we aren't going to hit them. We need to be out in front, leading them so that we hit where they're going to be by the time our book intersects their path.
No one can predict the future, and no one knows what will and won't get popular. So all you can do is to write the best books you can, share them as widely as possible, and make sure you understand who your ideal readers are.
Lastly... don't listen to advice from people who don't have any experience doing what you're trying to do. Your mom's bestie might really enjoy her book club, and your former college roommate might really think you would be a great fit for the romantasy genre, but unless someone is a professional book reviewer, an editor, a fellow writer, etc., it's just a bunch of hot air. Don't try to capture it in a balloon, hoping it will fly you away to the promised land.
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That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!
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