September Theme: State of the Industry (Bob Krech)

After having read the slew of thoughtful, articulate postings so far in September, I don't think I have much to add to this month's theme that hasn't already been said and said way better than I would have done. But, I will share a thought that occurred to me today that might be related in a way.

I have a book I'm working on that my editor likes. He would like it a lot more if my previous book had sold a lot more copies early on and so they're kind of waiting to see how sales progress before committing to my next book. He mentioned (maybe tongue in cheek, maybe not) how it would be great if I had a vampire story up my sleeve. (Both my books have sports themes!) He commented on how some very young folks around the publishing houses were writing these kinds of things and getting them snapped up by editors at very nice prices.

Now, I'd always been told that as a writer you should not chase what's hot, but just write what you write. (At the pace that I write, what's hot would be history by time I got a manuscript done) But, I guess jumping on the latest trend might work for some people or maybe those people were going to write those books regardless of the trend. I don't know, but it did make me think for a minute about going home and writing a story marrying my keen interest in sports with the supernatural trend and giving the world its first novel about basketball-playing vampires.

Then again, maybe I should just hold off until parodies get hot. :)