As I'm sure you've heard a million times, don't try to write what is selling. By the time you're done, that fad might have moved on without you. I mean, how many people began writing novels with sparkling vampires because the bookshops were filled with them, not knowing the industry had left vampires behind in favor of zombies or tough young women with archery skills?
Besides, if you switch to a genre you don't read a lot of, it will likely show. As we all know, the pathway to writing a book is paved with the books we have read. If you have enough pertinent life experience, you can certainly make up for a not reading in a genre. A retired police detective with decades of experience probably need not read hundreds of police procedurals, since those novels will almost surely be more frustrating than helpful. Still, there are craft lessons to be learned, so maybe reading a handful of the most successful would be a good thing.
Back to the main point- a writer shouldn't try to chase what seems to be hot. Especially when whatever looks to be in style in a bookstore was actually the talk of the publishing industry at least a year before, when a publisher bought it, and the writing likely began a year or two before that. By the time readers see marketing, the concept has been fleshed out, the book has been written and revised, an agent has been found or notified, more editing happened, the agent sold the novel to a publishing house, an announcement goes out to the industry insiders (more on this later), more editing happened, marketing plans and materials are created, publishing happened, distribution began, then the marketing appeared on the street, and the reader became conscious of the "new" book.
There are sources that can tell us what publishers are buying today, but as writers we're still behind by however long it takes to write the book.
Publisher's Weekly is not a source for what books are selling behind the scenes, but instead is great for articles about authors and books that are currently being marketed, perhaps as early as pre-release marketing. Its circulation is about 16,000 subscribers, but PW says that so many people pass along their articles, that their readership is more like 70,000. That's not 70,000 people getting the entire weekly issue, but certain articles get passed-along (it's actually called a "pass-along" rate) and so the reach on a certain piece hits that many more readers, PW claims. The readership, according to the magazine, are "booksellers, publishers, public and academic librarians, wholesalers, distributors, educators, agents and writers."
There's a lesser known (to readers and even writers) publication. It's called Publisher's Marketplace. It's online, not in print like PW, and it's daily instead of weekly. They are known as the "biggest and best dedicated marketplace for publishing professionals built on the foundation of Publishers Lunch, read by 40,000 industry insiders and considered 'publishing's essential daily read.'" Instead of 16,000 weekly subscribers like PW, it has 40,000 daily recipients. Publisher's Marketplace doesn't track the pass-along rate, partly because they ask subscribers not to pass along their issues. They're supported by subscriptions, not advertising.
While not everyone would be willing to pay the subscription fee, I have for 17 years or so, and subscribers can read daily announcements of what books sold that very day, to which publishers, and if an agent was involved, who it was. They can see a projected pub date, and often the size of the advance the author is receiving. And every sort of book is covered- every genre of fiction, or if the novel is from a debut author. What else has the author written? Perhaps it's nonfiction, those deals are in there, too, and foreign rights, TV and film rights, audiobook rights, you name it.
PM was not designed for readers or bookstores, but instead for publishing industry insiders (and Hollywood and international publishers) and they read every deal.
On January 14, 2022 alone, Publisher's Marketplace announced 73 brand-spanking new book deals. Now, each announcement doesn't have that People magazine feel, with photos and cover art, etc. Instead, they are 3-sentence announcements, giving the info-sans-hype.
We can do searches by genre or type of deal. For example, on January 14, we can see that of those 73 deals, two were for brand new thriller novels, and two others were romance. None of the deals on that day were mystery (although we see some the day before), and four deals were for literary fiction. On the nonfiction side, we can see that none were biography, but four memoir deals were announced that day.
There were eight novels, already printed in the United States, that found publishers who bought the foreign rights, and we can see the last announcement of film rights being sold for a novel was back on December 27, 2021. As for audiobook rights, on January 14, Tantor picked up a fantasy title and Blackstone picked up a mystery.
There are great publications for marketing your writing. It would be terrific to have your next novel featured in Publisher's Weekly, or to get a review in The New York Times. However, even though you shouldn't try to write based on what's selling because it's an ever-moving target, if you want to now what the industry is buying today, if you want to know what industry insiders read in order to stay on top of the publishing world...it's Publisher's Marketplace.
*NOTE: I don't work for PM, have no deal to push PM, and PM has no idea I'm writing this, because I'm nobody, really.
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