Market research for writers

Content is Queen, and She is cloaked in Voice.

Let’s talk about market research for writers, or, as I like to call it, reading research (and isn’t it wonderful news that we writers love to read!). There are a ton of courses out there to help writers became successful small business entrepreneurs, and most of them focus on marketing: social media, Amazon advertising, and so on. There’s information on identifying key words for your blurbs. There are statistics on current trends and advice on how to identify an unexplored, niche sub-genre. However, if you’re doing all this, and you feel you aren’t getting the return you deserve, perhaps it is time to go back to basics. How much personal research are you doing? Can you identify current trends without the help of an algorithm? In short, are you reading?

My day job is that of editor. I work with a lot of aspiring authors, some in romance, some in other genres. Whenever an aspiring writer tells me that there is nothing like her book on the shelves, I wince internally. It happens more often that you would think, and ninety-five percent of the time, the author is wrong. Natural curiosity, a bent towards the nerdish and a lifetime spent working in books in positions ranging from bookseller to sales rep and publicist mean that I’m familiar with many books across many genres; more than I could ever read. You would be surprised what you remember.

There are a number of problems associated with believing your book is unique in concept when it is not. First, agents, editors and publishers in traditional publishing have the same knowledge base I do. Start your cover letter with the phrase ‘my book is unique’, and you raise jaded eyebrows and lose some credibility before they’ve even read the first line of your manuscript.

Second, plot lines are limited and almost every book has a literary ancestor. Trends are circular. So are concepts. Industry professionals know this.

I was reminded that everything new is old when I recently read a Mary Stewart novel, My Brother Michael. I picked up the paperback at the Lifeline sale for three dollars. The cover was tagged ‘A Mary Stewart modern classic.’ It was at trip down memory lane for me. I remembered reading her non-Arthurian books as a teenager, and I wanted to see if she stood the test of time. She did. I loved it, and I noticed a couple of things right away that I had forgotten or wouldn’t have processed as a young reader. She writes in the first person from the heroine’s point of view. Faultlessly.

And never mind the ‘modern classics’ tag. What Mary Stewart writes is romantic suspense. I remembered the adventure but wondered if I had been wrong about the romance. I wasn’t. Then, despite the ‘classic’ label and the dress on the cover, the text was fresh and could have passed for contemporary if it wasn’t for the lack of mobile phones. No brand names or era defining fashion descriptions. No particularly parochial philosophies to date it. When was she writing, I wondered? I read them in the eighties, so maybe the seventies? I turned to the title page to find out. My Brother Michael was first published in 1959. So much for my half buried belief that omniscient point of view is ‘old’ and first person ‘new’.

Intrigued, I looked up her Wikipedia page: Mary, Lady Stewart (born Mary Florence Elinor Rainbow; 17 September 1916 – 9 May 2014) was a British novelist who developed the romantic mystery genre, featuring smart, adventurous heroines who could hold their own in dangerous situations. Read that description anywhere recently?

Third, if you don’t know the history of your (sub) genre, what the current trends are and which writers are dominating the bestseller lists, you don’t know what’s old and what’s new; what is cliched and what is innovative. You also don’t know which readers to target. Building and working a list of comparison authors and titles is the fastest way to improve your visibility to readers. Build on the work of your predecessors and stand alongside your contemporaries. There’s no point in slashing a new path through the forest if someone else has already built a road.

All of these points reinforce that Content is Queen, and she is cloaked in Voice. You can run as many Amazon ads as you like, but if you can’t tap into what appeals to readers, you won’t find an audience. Read, enjoy and analyse. Then write your story your way. Voice is what makes you unique. And if you really believe you have written something completely original, check out the indie authors publishing in your (sub) genre before you make any pronouncements. Indie is where the cutting edge stuff happens, usually long before traditional publishers are prepared to take a risk on it.

I recommend making one of your goals for this year to read ten books in your genre covering ‘historic’ titles dating back at least twenty years, contemporary bestsellers, the traditionally published and indie authors. Discover what you can learn from them. Then you can decide what you can do better.

This post first appeared as a column in Hearts Talk, the magazine of Romance Writers of Australia in early 2022.

Laura Boon is the author of The Millionaire Mountain Climber and Lion Dancing for Love. Tips from an Industry Insider, a collection of her Hearts Talk columns, is available now in paperback and ebook.