My Book Isn’t Selling, But a Market-Friendly Version Wouldn’t Be “Mine”
What happens when the idea of writing a market-friendly book feels like a survival threat?
—Annie Mydla, Managing Editor
Over six years and hundreds of novel and memoir critiques, I've noticed something surprising:
Many of the writers who struggle to write a market-friendly book simply don't want to.
I don't just mean they don't want it enough. I mean that the idea of writing a book with commercially viable craft characteristics feels like a survival-level threat.
They don't want to write a market-friendly book in the same way I don't want to be eaten by a bear.
These authors will say they want to write a market-friendly book. They'll even pay me to help them do it.
But there's no escaping a painful inner conflict when they start to understand the needs of market-friendly novels and memoirs: what these books actually look like from a composition point of view.
A frequent conversation during my video calls with clients involves me suggesting the incorporation of developmental-level techniques like escalating tension and release, selective scope, and greater narrative emphasis. Our exchange might go like this:
"I understand you'd like this book to be commercially successful, ideally with the support of an agent. Is that right?"
"Yes."
"Would you be willing to make structural changes in order to help that happen?"
"Yes."
"Market-friendly books often raise tension starting at an inciting incident within the first three chapters. The tension keeps rising until there's a climax at around the 90-95% point. Have you seen that in books you've read?"
"Yes."
Then I ask the question that triggers the crisis. "Would you consider writing a version of your book that follows that structure?"
Fight, flight, freeze, or fawn: I've witnessed all four in authors in the moments after those words. Responses have included:
Fight: "Wait, what? Are you telling me my book is a failure? That I'm a failure?"
Flight: "So, how long is this Zoom call? Half an hour, right?" (It's an hour).
Freeze: "Oh...yes, okay." (Then they stay almost silent for the rest of the call).
Fawn: "You're so right! That's exactly what it needs." (The writer gushes about what good advice I've given, then never contacts me again.)
The answer isn't just a "no". It's a survival response.
I'm a people pleaser by nature, so this kind of friction with a client can be unbearable. As the years go by, I continually troubleshoot my approach. In Zoom calls, I try to use a calm, warm voice, build up to my point slowly, spend most of the meeting listening, and deliver my write-up beforehand so the author can digest my points. In the critiques themselves, I continually test out new language to be diplomatic, light, supportive, and appreciative of authors' existing strengths.
But no matter how I dress it up, play it down, or emphasize that developmental-level changes actually increase opportunities for self-expression, authors respond as though I'm asking them to offer themselves up to a grizzly.
What's at stake here isn't just literary or commercial, but personal, and even existential.
One thing that seems to be especially threatening for authors is the implication that their book is a product. The writer's sense of self is tied so closely to their book that the suggestion that developmental-level techniques be used to increase market-friendliness is akin to suggesting that their very identity be readjusted for market-friendliness.
Meanwhile, for many of these authors, writing is the activity they've chosen to help them break free of artificiality in their identities. They may have spent decades in a job that's "not them", putting their children and partner first, caregiving for elderly parents, and more. Their book is a chance to reassert who they are and express what they've been keeping inside for all that time.
But the fact remains: if they want their book to sell, the book is going to need the characteristics the market rewards, including escalating tension and release. It's my job to gently point this out if I know the author's goals include traditional publication or brisk sales as a self-published book.
As I've shown, these interactions can become perfect storms for hurt feelings, and more than that: hurt identities. Hurt visions of the future. Hurt prospects of self-actualization.
Something I've come to understand is that authors often have other, non-literary, non-commercial goals for their books that feel threatened by the implications of developmental-level editing:
"I'm writing a book so I can tell the truth about life, and life has no climaxes."
"Creativity is about passion. Too much design and the book wouldn't be 'mine'".
"I can't emphasize any part of my story over any other. Readers wouldn't be able to understand the whole picture."
Comments like these make me aware of a dichotomy in authors' minds. Authenticity and self-expression are raw and untutored. If market-friendly means intentionality, the book won't be authentic.
The ideas of "art" and "artifice" come into play here. "Art" is what many authors I speak with are going for: the book as the ultimate vehicle for self-expression, an opportunity for social elevation in their communities, a channel for their pain, and the key to self-actualization. Meanwhile, what I'm asking them to do feels like "artifice": lying, manipulating. Controlling readers' experiences.
The desirability of writing art and the undesirability of writing artifice exist as painful opposites within many of our clients. On the one hand, these authors are deeply invested in the idea of their book becoming popular with general audiences or gaining representation by an agent. On the other, these authors only feel good about a vision of success in which a wide audience purchases and enjoys the version of their book that emerged "naturally". This kind of success cannot only be based on craft or financial fulfillment, but must take the form of widespread social affirmation of something about them that's raw, untutored, natural, and profoundly personal.
When my suggestion that the author add a climax to the book is met with fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, I know I'm speaking with an author who feels they cannot compromise on that ultra-personal vision of success. Learning developmental editing strategies or taking developmental suggestions is "artifice" and anathema to deep-seated values and goals.
One thing that has perplexed me in the past is that authors are willing to design certain parts of their books—for example, characters, plot, and theme. Authors seem comfortable with suggestions concerning their characters as people, what happens in the plot, and what messages the book is giving. Such suggestions are welcome as insights in line with their goals of self-expression, social worth, restoring meaning, and self-fulfillment. In other words, "telling their story".
Developmental-level suggestions seem less welcome, however. Ideas like adding or extending a book's climax, identifying and emphasizing one main plotline and deemphasizing others, and using genre as a way to gauge content choices feel more like being untrue to oneself, untrue to one's story.
I have spent years with the question of why characters, plot points, and themes are accepted as tools for the writer's art, while using developmental ideas like escalating tension and release, narrative emphasis, selective scope, and the needs of the target audience are not. On one level, I believe that authors are more comfortable talking about character, plot, and theme (or "message" or "main idea") simply because they have been using them longer. These are the ingredients we're given as very small children when we're encouraged to start writing our own stories.
Society's messages about the nature of creativity might also play a role. Many of us are raised from an early age to think that creativity is "telling your story" and being yourself. Perhaps the early association of creativity and authenticity with characters, plot, and theme is partly responsible for authors' willingness to work with those ingredients, but not developmental considerations like escalating tension and release and narrative emphasis, even when those developmental considerations are key to making a book feel like "a real book" on the general market.
I have come to believe that there may also be a social dimension to early writers' embrace of character, plot, and theme over developmental techniques. When we talk with one another, our conversations are filled with ideas like what happened, who was involved, what they did, how it made us feel, what it all meant, and how it continues to affect us. In other words, characters, plot points, and themes. Authors who are just starting out may find themselves drawing on those familiar tools while they're still building their toolbox of techniques specific to writing craft.
The role of stories in our everyday social interaction is such a deep part of us that we may find it hard to think about how they're used differently in literature. With our families, friends, and others, we use stories to make points, make people laugh, help them experience something they couldn't attend in person, and help people get to know us and understand who we are. We also tell stories to manipulate people into having certain reactions to things, as well as making people believe things that aren't true.
All of these uses of stories aren't created equal from a social perspective. The latter examples about manipulating and lying are seen as bad, and in a social context, they are bad. But what about in a literary context? Manipulation and lying are harsh words, but in the hands of a skilled author, these two activities can give readers some of the most exhilarating, profound, and true experiences of their lives.
From what I've observed, though, the prospect of "lying" and "manipulating" is terrifying for authors who carry the social orientation with them into the literary act of writing.
Perhaps that's part of the reason why early-career and self-published authors might feel "telling a story" with character, plot, and themes is a good-faith activity that increases the value of the book and the integrity and worth of the author. Meanwhile, "designing a book to give the reader specific reactions" with escalating tension and release, narrative emphasis, selective scope, and knowledge of the intended audience feels like bad faith to these authors, decreasing the book and author's moral worth even if it increases its financial worth.
At the same time, the author's book is so tied up with their identity that lack of sales can feel like a cosmic rejection. Not selling feels like a repudiation of who they are...but writing the book that sells feels like a betrayal of who they are. Authors are cornered. For me, that explains the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn reaction.
Fortunately, we're talking about writing, so even a threat that feels survival-level still means authors continue to live, grow, and learn. An option that feels impossible in the moment can seem more manageable after we've had time to process. Some write back days, weeks, or months later to say that our conversation was a turning point:
"It was hard, but I needed to hear it."
"I learned more about tension and release, and it's making a difference for me."
"Beta readers are more positive now. I think it's because I'm building to a climax."
Some authors never return to the idea of developmental editing techniques, but many find over time that their options for self-expression and creativity are increased by this new layer of composition tools. I've heard authors say that they're concerned the "formula" of escalating tension and release will force them into using dull, predictable plot beats. On the contrary. The beauty of the tension and release technique, along with other developmental-level strategies, is that it leaves the plot beats open for the writer to decide. Nothing says they have to be predictable, only that they raise tension at some points and release it at other points. In fact, since raising tension is a priority, it's necessary for authors to avoid or subvert predictable patterns that undermine tension and release. Authors who learn developmental skills report feeling freed from old content habits, finding new levels of meaning on paths that previously might have gone unexplored.
If you want to learn more about developmental editing, there are lots of good resources on the web. You'd be surprised at how straightforward the skills are to pick up, and how enjoyable the writing process can be while using them.
Learning the difference between developmental editing and other types of editing:
https://whatwewriting.com/guide-to-developmental-editing/
Developmental Editing: A Handbook for Freelancers, Authors, and Publishers, by Scott Norton
Developmental editing checklists:
https://normajhill.com/2021/08/23/editing-levels-2-developmental-editing-checklist/
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aDm3woJYq-DUYgR6UTz2fwu9AQyhmcjO/view
https://beaconpointservices.org/checklists-for-editors/ (Scroll for the "Developmental Fiction Checklist")
Categories: Advice for Writers, Annie in the Middle
