In Scott Ginsberg’s post
on creating art,
he talks about
creating art without watching the market.
“Stop worrying about
which shelf your book belongs to.
Just write the damn thing.
Stop stressing over
which genre your music is classified as.
Just sing your face off.”
Yeah, been there, done that,
got the teeny tiny royalty check.
Artists have to eat also.
If you want to eat,
you have to sell.
If you want to sell,
you need to produce a product people actually want.
During brainstorming of ideas,
I agree that you can ignore the market.
However,
if you don’t look at how or to whom
you’ll sell this product
before you create,
you’ll end up creating a basement full of unsaleable art.
As a writer,
I look at the tweaks I can make
to the product
to make the market happier.
For example
If I’m writing about a vegetarian vampire
and I know the big bite scene is important to readers,
I’ll have a secondary character
who not only adds contrast
(and usually humor)
but gives the reader the bite scene they want.
Bam.
I’ve made my potential readers happy,
increasing my sales by word of mouth,
AND made the story better.
THAT is what selling creative people do
and selling creative people
get to create full time.