I’m not going to tell you the most important thing ever is writing the book of your heart.

It might be. In my 26th year as a professional novelist I have reason to suspect it. But horses for courses, you know? There are times in your life when you simply can’t write the book of your heart. Worse, there are books of the heart that you probably shouldn’t write.

Okay, wrong there, but if you write it, do so and then lock it in a box and bury the box six feet deep.

I’m talking here of stuff like “A regency romance but all the protagonists are parrots and sex and egg laying are described in loving detail.” I don’t care how much you love that idea, your chance of selling the d*mn book, no matter how well written, and no matter how much you sink into publicity is none.

Also, if your heart book involves detailed snuff fantasies… well, maybe you’ll find readers, but do you want to? How many people on death row for serial murder do you want thanking you for a beautiful book?

Barring that kind of thing, though…. I’d say heart books are better. Not only do they tend to be better written, because you’re all in, but if they find the audience (this is still a crap shoot, trad or indie) they will sell and propagate if not immediately then over time.

I speak with some experience here. In fact, the book that’s done best for me (No Man’s Land) is for various reasons far less “commercial” than any of my other books ever. So I have to assume that it was something extra I put in that makes it sell.

In the same way, though everyone else says that fantasy outsells science fiction 10 to 1, for me it’s the exact opposite. I still write some fantasy, because I have series started and they have fans, but honestly, fantasy novels make me the same as a short story. Science fiction novels, though, even silly stuff like Rhodes, always surprise me.

I have to assume it’s because I really like Space Opera MUCH better than fantasy. It’s not that I dislike fantasy, precisely, I read Pratchett and Jim Butcher, not to mention Correia. It’s that if you give me a scenario I tend to cast it space opera or time travel rather than fantasy. And also if you wrote a traditional epic fantasy, it needs to be something completely extraordinary to keep me from gnawing off my hands to get away. It really, really, really ain’t my cup of tea.

Frankly I wrote fantasy, ever, because it was the one thing trad pub was willing to buy from me. (Their being convinced space opera was dead.) Otherwise, I’d probably never have done it.

And my numbers, now being visible, since I’m indie, tell me my money lies where my heart does, too. Which is encouraging, sure, but also interesting, as I’m not absolutely sure what does it.

If I had to venture a mechanism, it would be that writing what you have to because it’s what the publishers will buy and/or because you think it’s what will sell means that you’re writing out of obligation and that shows, subtly, in your word choice, your rhythm of language, and other things that subconsciously communicate to the reader “I’m doing this out of obligation” which in turn turns reading into more of a chore, even if there’s nothing obviously wrong with the book. If you’re good and competent you’ll still have fans — my fantasy does — but it’s never going to make most people’s heart sing, so it limits itself.

I think it’s the same mechanism when you think the purpose of writing is to divulge a message or write a just-so scenario (or when this is imposed on you by publishers) because then what happens is that your short circuiting your own mind, and you don’t even know if this is what you WANT to write, much less how various scenes will hit the reader.

It works much better if this imaginary place is where you like to hang out and you’re letting people in to share your precious.

Anyway, something to consider. Don’t blindfold your muse with either ideology or rumors of “Saleability”.

Write what you love. Yes it’s far scarier, because what if people hate it?

But then again, consider: What if people love it?

Writing is not for sissies. Don’t be one.