Writing for a mass audience

Successful authors who sell many books are business people. If you aren’t, you should be thinking like one.

I suppose my coming from the business world, this fact strikes me as intuitively obvious. If there is one thing I’ve learned over the years it’s that what is obvious to one might be a ‘eureka’ moment to another.
All aspects of a storyline and how you write things can be scrutinized from a business angle. For instance, if I wrote this blog for international consumption, my use of the colloquialism ‘eureka’ might be deemed quite limiting in its ability to be comprehended by audiences in other countries.
Other countries you say? But I am writing in English and intending to only sell this to a publisher for consumption by folks in the US.
Okay, let’s introduce some reality. Publishers want to sell lots of books. You probably want them to sell zillions too. Even though the US market is large, the world is even larger, and if your book is headed toward the bestseller list, you can guarantee that it will be sold outside the US and likely get translated in multiple languages.
That being said, we need to think of our books as commodities that need to appeal to wider audiences.
“How does one do that your Blogginess?”
This is where I will pull from anecdotes I’ve collected from various places in my head or other people’s vastly more experienced heads.
Dave Wolverton (AKA Dave Farland) once told me about some observations he had about the movie Titanic. With his permission I am paraphrasing that conversation here:
Titanic was a blockbuster without a doubt. However there were some anomalies when an analysis was done of some of the places where the movie was hugely more popular per capita than other locations. It just so happened to be that Titanic had scenes where lots of families from different places in the world (e.g. China, Italy, etc) were shown conversing in their native language. Most of these were scenes of refugees or other “third class” passengers, but they were clearly there.
Evidently inserting these scenes gave the audience in that country an object to relate to in a personal way and made the story that much more meaningful to them. The effort in retrospect was very small for the producers, but had huge dividends in the box office.
Personally I found this to be a brilliant observation. So how does this relate to writing you ask?
There are some simple things that can be done which give people things to relate to personally. It may seem ridiculously simple, but let’s say for example you have a character with a French sounding name. Some folks in France may suddenly have someone to relate to.
How about (avoiding any real life example) you studied the X religion or culture and they had certain mannerisms that were identifiable. If one of your characters seemed to emulate those mannerisms, you may find yourself catching a whole culture as a relatable audience.
Clearly these tricks are useful, but if your story is hitting a genre that people don’t normally pick up (e.g. Autobiography of a 17 year old who isn’t otherwise noteworthy to anyone but their family) – nothing will help.
Sometimes genres will explode (Twilight and the smitten teen vampire series). Nobody would necessarily have predicted it (certainly I wouldn’t have) – but there are genres that are known to be more commercial than others.
Young adult or middle grade (Twilight and Harry Potter respectively) are examples of books in such genres.
I’d assert commercial viability changes over time.
Are there exceptions?
Sure. Even though Justin Bieber may never have written anything more profound than a 100 character Tweet – any book he writes (even if it is composed of blank pages) will be a commercial success. Anyone with 14 million+ followers on Twitter is their own marketing ecosystem.
Celebrities of course are exceptions. Bill O’Reilly is an example of such. He writes non-fiction, which traditionally isn’t a big seller, but he consistently sells millions of copies of each book he produces. Why? Are they the best written and most profound things ever?
Probably not. Certainly they have to be competently written, but the reason for success is because of that person’s built-in following. It certainly doesn’t hurt that he has a venue with millions of watchers to hawk his wares to.
When writing, keep in mind how people can relate to the characters in a deeply personal manner. Sometimes it may be national pride (Of course the Hobbiton guy kicks the arse of the person from Mordor!) Certain themes lend themselves to being relatable. David defeating Goliath is an archetype people relate to (tiny Hobbit is hero of LOTR). Nationalistic pride can come into play. Cultural affectations such as the pride and honor associated with certain people can be exuded by a character.
Some authors literally make a career out of writing for foreign audiences. Marion Zimmer Bradley made millions in Germany. Dan Wells is doing it, too. So foreign audiences can end up being a huge portion of an author’s income.
If you have certain audiences in mind, I am sure you can come up with subtle ways to get those audiences to relate to your story and/or characters. This can only help when it comes to marketing the book, and may even lead to more options on movie rights, etc.
As an author, you might even start reading books with a different slant other than for pure enjoyment. Start analyzing books and how they might latch onto certain demographics.
Again, I hope this insight helps someone out there.
-Mike Rothman