They love what I hate, and hate what I love.
I have written more that a few books, but one annoying result of all this writing is that readers seem to prefer the books of mine, which I don’t particularly like at all. Now, this poses quite a conundrum for me, doesn’t it? Should I write for me, or for them? Which would mean for me, to learn to love what I hate to write.
It seemed to have started when I decided (under pressure from my blog readers I might add) to write a bloody vampire story. Let’s get something straight here. I have no interest in, or knowledge at all about vampires, but ok, I wrote a silly story. End result; it has attracted a pile of 5 star reviews, sold heaps of copies, but embarrasses me greatly. Well, embarrass is a strong word. But I would prefer to nail my writing reputation on something more than a little blonde vampire.
Then there is a trilogy of sci-fi farce, which from my perspective gets better in book two and three, yet only book one gets the rave reviews and sales. This I struggle to comprehend, because if book one is so well liked, something must be really amiss with the other two books. My problem is that for the life of me, I don’t know what is wrong, because I especially love book two . This leave me two choices. Either I am stupid, or my readers are. But by weight of numbers, of course I must be wrong.
Then there is an even bigger shame for me. Of all the books I have written and published, the one that attracted the most reviews and five star ratings was a near 200 page collection of my silly blog posts, covering a three year period. So humiliated was I that I actually took the book down for a year and hoped it would be forgotten and ignored. Unfortunately for me, it was pirated and then downloaded squillions of times. This book just won’t go away.
Then there are a couple of stories that I like, and luckily, or conveniently, my readers seem to like too. But two out of lots is not many.
So, here is my conundrum. Do I write for me, or for my readers?
I suppose know the answer to my own question, but there is no damn way that I will write another vampire story!
I understand your conundrum, Derek. Have always written for myself. However, writing this book of short stories has made me think. There are thousands of readers, hopefully, and cannot please everyone of those readers, in my humble opinion.
p.s. Just came from your page on Amazon. You’re not kidding; you sure have written loads of books. And sold. Congratulations!
Thank you for your kind comment, Petra. Happy to hear I am not the only writer with the same conundrum. But between you and me, no vampires, huh? lol
Speaking as someone who is in the early stages of building a following, I have yet to experience the conundrum you speak of. However, I know it afflicts other artists who need to release product to sustain themselves. I’m from a musical background and playing covers versus original material was one of the things which eventually tore my band apart. There was no doubt that playing popular material and jumping on the bandwagon yielded the most lucrative gigs. But performing our original songs brought the most satisfaction.