What’s Hot, What’s Not and What’s Maybe

Who’s to know? What will the next fashion in writing be? As writers, alone with our keyboards and our thoughts, it can get demoralising when we’re receiving decline after decline ‘…not what we’re looking for at the moment…’ ‘…not on our current list of whatevers…’ So what’s to do? Get out that great big shiny crystal ball I’d say and give it a good polish. Failing that, get on the internet and do some research or buy a trade newspaper and see what those in the know are chattering about.

Some say young adult, some say fantasy, some say non-fiction – but all signs point to audio and digital rather than an old fashioned love-it-or-hate-it paper version of your book. No doubt such changes will be driven by authors in their twenties and thirties, embracing technology in a way that older authors don’t. If you are an autonomous author you can of course continue to write your kind of novel, and you will find your audience eventually, but it can be hard work. If you are agented the hill is no less steep, and you will have helping hands along the way – but only if you’ve ticked the agent’s ‘Ah yes this is exactly what we’re looking for’ box. Slippery old eel, that just what we’re looking for idea. Checking out an agent’s website you will see that each agent gives and indication of their likes and possibly dislikes, and if you’re not writing what they like, don’t bother sending your work to them. Save yourself the misery of a no thanks. If you want to be agented, find an agent that, like you, likes crime, or horror, or romance – funnily enough you’ll stand more of a chance of them taking notice of your work. Have a look at what’s going on in the world – does your book align with any world events? I’m guessing the next five years will show a rise in dystopian After The World Ended novels, especially for young and new adult readers – and most of it will be on an audio or digital platform. If you’re a self-publisher then you have the freedom to write what you like, but that is not a get out of jail clause for sloppy writing. Some self-published author’s work I’ve read has come across as them just talking very loudly at me, brow-beating me with what they think a good book is because that’s exactly what theirs is and am I paying attention?
There may well be an uptake in Immigration writing, words of those from war-ridden countries who have been freed from refugee camps and tell it like it is; when America has a new president we may well see a raft of political thrillers again, and not forgetting AI, fantasy and science fiction for young adult and older readers alike (according to my research) – all set to be popular in the next 24 months. Likewise Life Before The Internet is also growing in popularity for millennial readers; a hankering perhaps to experience what their parents and grandparents sometimes speak of ‘Oh yes, there were only three television channels and they went off at midnight!’ But then there were four, then five, then all-night tv, dial up phones were replaced by push button ones and a what? A mobile telephone? What even is that? Another world, eh? So fantasy and science fiction can come full circle and join hands with memoir and historical romance, if you wanted them to.