<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As any artist (especially we indie folks) will tell you, marketing is hard.\u00a0 <\/span>It takes time, money, effort, a fair amount of patience, and holds no guarantee that a given marketing effort will be successful.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s the same problem the big players face.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n On a recent episode of one of the regular podcasts I listen to, they started discussing news from this year\u2019s annual Comic Con.\u00a0 <\/span>Most of this discussion centered on news announcements from Marvel and DC Comics about major superhero films to be released next year or in 2015.\u00a0 <\/span>This has me reflecting on the business side of storytelling and how much we all collectively suffer from genre chasing.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n What\u2019s that mean?\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n For a moment we\u2019ll stick with films to explore this issue.\u00a0 <\/span>Several decades ago almost none of the studios were willing to finance and market a big budget superhero film.\u00a0 <\/span>The perception was that such films were inherently campy, would attract only die-hard comic fans, and would basically bomb at the box office.\u00a0 <\/span>Fast forward a few decades and the biggest film news (and films with the biggest box office return) comes from two comic book companies.\u00a0 <\/span>What changed?\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n Back in the 1950\u2019s the safe money was primarily in stories from the Western genre; this year one of the biggest flops of the summer is Disney\u2019s The Lone Ranger<\/i>.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The late \u201870\u2019s and early \u201880\u2019s witnessed a resurgence in the science fiction genre (also big in the \u201850\u2019s).\u00a0 <\/span>Eventually that trend too was replaced.\u00a0 <\/span>Sooner or later the glut of big (and small budget) superhero films will also dissipate.\u00a0 <\/span>The billion dollar question then becomes: what genre do audiences want now?\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n Authors suffer a similar problem.\u00a0 <\/span>We want to tell stories that people will find interesting and hopefully read.\u00a0 <\/span>Big publishers want to sell books and make money.\u00a0 <\/span>The easiest way for them to do that is to push or embrace hot trends in certain genres.\u00a0 <\/span>Harry Potter<\/i> becomes an international sensation and suddenly you\u2019re better off telling stories about magic.\u00a0 <\/span>Twilight <\/i>makes a big splash; good thing you had the foresight to write about vampires.\u00a0 <\/span>The Hunger Games<\/i> hit; quick, write a dystopian novel aimed at YA readers.\u00a0 <\/span>50 Shades of Grey <\/i>has sex and sex sells\u2026<\/p>\n Oh wait, your work doesn\u2019t have these things? Your book doesn\u2019t follow the same structure as these stories?\u00a0 <\/span>Your book is in what genre?<\/p>\n It can be maddening to try and deal with the genre chasing.\u00a0 <\/span>Again, it\u2019s understandable that big publishers (like film studios) want to make money but as a storyteller it can be extremely frustrating to have worked so hard on a writing project only to have genre chasing limit its chances for success.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n But remember that this is nothing new.\u00a0 <\/span>Publishers, authors, and readers have been dancing this waltz for a very long time.\u00a0 <\/span>And it\u2019s unlikely the music will stop any time soon.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n So what\u2019s an author to do?\u00a0 <\/span>Do you give in to a genre trend and craft a story that has a better chance of getting serious notice from publishers because it appeals to the audience of the moment?\u00a0 <\/span>Do you ignore these trends and tell the story you want to tell, regardless of the genre and try to discover your audience?\u00a0 <\/span>Should you go visit a local fortuneteller to guide you to the right genre?\u00a0 <\/span>Hire a bunch of people in business suits to predict what will be the next genre to mine?\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n My simple advice is this: write your story first.\u00a0 <\/span>Write what you want to write.\u00a0 <\/span>Tell the story you feel passionate about telling.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n Decisions about marketing often begin to fully take shape during the editing process.\u00a0 <\/span>The feedback you receive might give you new directions to explore that take your writing in a completely different direction than the one you originally envision.\u00a0 <\/span>Pay service to your story first before you pay a service to help market it.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n If you end up with a story that doesn\u2019t neatly fall into a genre that\u2019s currently rife with bestsellers — don\u2019t panic.\u00a0 <\/span>If your story is well-crafted, interesting, and something you truly want to share it will find an audience in time.\u00a0 <\/span>Besides, the genre chasing never stops so who knows; you may just be ahead of the curve.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As any artist (especially we indie folks) will tell you, marketing is hard.\u00a0 It takes time, money, effort, a fair amount of patience, and holds no guarantee that a given marketing effort will be successful.\u00a0 It\u2019s the same problem the big players face.\u00a0 On a recent episode of one of the regular podcasts I listen … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17,27,26,25,21,28,24],"class_list":["post-459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-film","tag-films","tag-freedom","tag-genre","tag-hollywood","tag-scripts","tag-storytelling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enceladusliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enceladusliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enceladusliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enceladusliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enceladusliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=459"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.enceladusliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":460,"href":"https:\/\/www.enceladusliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions\/460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enceladusliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enceladusliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enceladusliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}