When a market is about to explode, readers are hungry for the genre and consume everything in it too quickly. If demands aren't met, they start looking for the next genre to catch their interest. However, if there is a higher volume of available content, they'll stay in the genre. Proof of that, you can see on Google Trends.
Paranormal Fantasy popularity:
You can see there was a big spike for it in October 2009, and that date we saw a few paranormal fantasy/romance type books come out. However, the author community didn't respond with enough vigor, quickly, and the readership got bored. (I'd also like to call out that Kindle Direct (launched in 2007, not popular until late 2009) and other self-pub/indie-pub options were not as viable as they are now, so that could've hurt the market too.)
Because I wanted to share more of these interesting learnings, here's a light off-topic veer for a second.
Sci-Fi has spikes in November:
But only just recently when they started figuring out the release cadence, and they've slowed the degradation of the genre readership, possibly even turned it around.
This is a really good thing.
Fantasy has Spikes in September, and is very stable, whereas Urban Fantasy specifically has spikes in August and is tapering off.
So then, know when I show you this next chart what it could mean for the genre if we don't hop on the bandwagon fast.
Literary Role Playing Game, or LitRPG. James has already written and published his piece for the genre, and it's the best received book he's ever had. Here's the pudding, you find the proof:
What other graph does this remind you of? Paranormal Fantasy?
Let's not allow that to happen. Rally up, author's. It's time to blow the doors off a new market and bust in there! (but not get her pregnant because that would be rude)
There's obvious data about release cadences, they're structured and planned to keep readers locked in a genre loop, or genre juggling (reading the new stuff from one right as a new one comes out in the next genre).
Alright, enough about that. Next on the docket is Genuine Fans. Though maybe I should've broke this out into multiple posts, because I have plenty more to say on the above (I learned a few things at COSine! Which... I guess I'll blog about next >_>)
I met a gentleman named Vincente at MileHiCon, and he first approached the author next to me. I stood by quietly and allowed my boothmate to chat him up, see if he could make a sale. Vincente mentioned he liked sci-fi (my boothmate had none), which was right about the moment I noticed his SpaceX jacket.
With a little too much enthusiasm I exclaimed in a flurry, "ARE YOU WITH SPACEX?" No, he said, but he liked what they were doing. We discussed the recent launches, and what we were excited for, and then a magical thing happened. He asked me about my only sci-fi book on the stack.
We chatted a bit more and he decided, to my surprise, to buy it. I'm always a little surprised when a male buys my books since they typically feature strong, independent ladies (a girl's gotta have role models... and mentors... but that's another post).
Then another magical thing happened, he, of his own volition, wrote a review on amazon. And not the "It was good, 4 stars" review, but he looked at it critically, and gave (I hope) his honest opinion about it, which included some space for improvement and more research on my end (happening in the next book, promise).
Lots of parenthesis happening in this post.
So, you thought it was as magical as it could get at that last bit, right? Wrong. Turns out Vincente lives near Colorado Springs, which was where COSine is held. Magic and sparkles: he showed up to chat with me about Sway's Demise, and then bought both books in the Verge of Desolation series! It's less sci-fi in the first volume, so I'm hoping it doesn't bore him to death, but vol.2 is most certainly my most polished work so far (except maybe Inamorata which I love to death).
Wow! For the first time ever, someone came to talk to me about my book, and buy more of them because they liked the first! Someone other than my mother or friends, that is. I know it may sound silly for me to be so stoked, but this feels like finally crushing a 4 in bouldering when I've been trapped at 3+/4- for 6 months solid (that happened too, but I rarely talk about climbing, so I guess you guys aren't in the know about how much awesome that was for me =p)
I did it again. Seems like this has gone on for long enough, with way too many parenthesis. I'm off! Peace out kiddies, and thanks, Vincente, for being totally awesome =)
nice post
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