After Maureen’s post, I’ve been thinking a lot about what to write. And couldn’t come up with anything nearly as thought provoking.
My mind has been scattered the past few days, all over the place, personal, writing wise, I’ve got a to do list a mile long, which is so daunting it’s making me procrastinate.
And to procrastinate I usually surf the net, read blogs, and writing industry web sites.
What I’ve learned is that the market is still very much in a bit of a flux right now. Especially the romance market.
So here is the result of three days of way too much internet surfing.
What’s seems to be selling right now.
1) Erotic, is still doing well, but seems to be reaching a maturation stage. It’s also doing well in combination with other genre’s. So the hot paranormal, or hot historical is doing well.
2) Paranormal – Anything but werewolfs and vampires. Apparently editors are all stocked up on those two. They’re looking for different ideas for paranormals.
3) Straight romance, or romantic comedy. A really tough sell these days.
4) Romantic suspense – this is one place where editors do seem to be looking to acquire. There have been a couple of breakout authors in this area which I think seem to be fueling demand. Allison Brennan comes to mind.
5) Historical – still very slow, even though a lot of people, myself included have predicted a comeback for months now. I think editors are waiting for a big, breakout historical novel to start things moving again.
Outside of romance, Chicklit, this market got seriously inundated a couple of years ago and it’s still having an impact on how editors are buying. I think YA is heading there, but I know really little about this, so I could be seriously wrong.
Apparently straight historicals are still going strong.
Where does that leave us? With a tough market looking for new voices and fresh ideas. I know this sounds discouraging, but perhaps it’s the best possible thing. Perhaps editors are open to anything really interesting, written really well.
Now might be the time to really open up the wells of our imagination, come up with concepts and ideas that five years ago would have been too risky.
Or maybe I’m just having a glass half full kind of day, but I like the idea of stretching the boundaries of romance, or any genre.
2 comments:
That's funny I should have been working too -- you know I feel like as long as we've been writing Romanctic suspense and paranormal have been making these huge gains and I always think about what Gayle Wilson who is a very successful romantic suspense author said to me last year -- when she started she couldn't sell a romantic suspense to save her life.
I feel that way about romantic comedy and straight romance -- a few years from now I HOPE I will be saying the same thing.
It's time for romantic comedy and straight comedy.
When done well, they are so great...
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