Comment by TheOtherHobbes
Comment by TheOtherHobbes 3 days ago
This is called write-to-market, and it's a well-known thing in self publishing - even though many wannabe fiction writers choose to ignore it, because they'd rather believe their book will have publishers swooning and readers gushing. (Spoilers: odds of that are very, very close to zero.)
In fact all publishing is write-to-market now.
Most traditionally published books are picked to chase trends. There's also a huge market for ghost-written titles with a celebrity on the cover.
It's a shamelessly conservative industry. It's unbelievably hard to pitch a fresh fiction franchise, even if it's wildly creative and incredibly well-written.
"Most drama today sucks" --- "This is called write-to-market"
Yes. I doubt you disagree, but I needed to point that out. These two, along with writing-by-formula, are intricately related. There's nothing wrong with writing being a racket.
If you want to feel depressed and lack a sense of optimism in humanity, spend some time learning about the publishing industry. Woof. It's nothing but formulaic conservative market-driven darkness all the way down. AND all the players are well-established, they've driven out inefficiencies, and they've got plenty of tricks to keep the riff-raff out. They've been doing that for centuries.
I don't like joking on HN, but this is a personal joke I've used for some time and seems appropriate: Want to start a new streaming series? Throw together a bunch of marketing-driven adjectives and end with "and they solve crimes."
"She's a gay little person goth time-traveling alien, he's an autistic left-handed incel Quaker. They live in Portland, and together they solve crimes."
My opinion is that people are going to eventually get sick of this stuff, much the same as they got tired of the B Monster Movies in the 50s, but who knows. Detective and True-Crime novels are perennials. Not my circus, not my monkeys. Working like this sounds to me like having a job I hate.