A writer can't afford to just focus on writing and leave marketing aside in today's competitive market.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I feel that if you made your writing too contrived to meet the market, it wouldn't be any good.
What is difficult is the promotion, balancing the public side of a writer's life with the writing. I think that's something a lot of writers are having to face. Writers have become much more public now.
Standing out as a writer today requires more than a bright idea and limpid prose. Authors need to become businesspeople as well.
Forget market or publishers or whatever. Just write with fire and joy, and in my own experience, those are the stories of mine people have wanted to read.
You have to write the story that's at the front of your head. There is no point in trying to write for the market; it won't ring true.
Those who write may think they know their target market. They may even feel they can shape the work to fit it. If this is true of you, you have more control over your creative process than I do. Even so, I humbly submit that you try letting your writing shape your target market instead and see what happens.
People might think writing is a hard business, but it's nowhere near acting.
Being a professional writer is not an easy way to make a living.
I want my writing to reach people. I don't write for a market. I write from my heart, something that appeals to me. The marketing, segmenting etc., can be done by your publisher, not you.
I've always felt writing is an art. Publishing is a business. I felt strongly if I was going to write, I would write what I wanted to, and if the 'market' didn't respond, there was nothing I could really do about it.