The Would I Buy This? Test

How do you choose which books you buy? (If you don't buy books, see Reason #1, then stop writing.) Do you:

• Browse the shelves at your local chain store?
• Read the reviews in the Sunday Elitist?
• Let your friends screen the current bestsellers?
• Grab whatever's on the top rack at the airport newsstand?
• Get This Month's Special auto-shipped from Doubleday Book Club?

How would your novel fit into your purchasing routines? With thousands of books published every year, most of which won't make it into these venues, would you even see it?

This is the Would I Buy This? test. If you're not completely sure you would buy the novel, you're wasting your time writing it.

The people who buy books from new authors are usually hardcore genre fans. They're not very discerning (face it, you're not), but they know what they like. If you're not a hardcore fan of the genre you're writing, you don't know what these fans want. Fail them, and your career won't gain traction. Your publisher will dump you, and you'll have to shop around your next misconceived piece of shit under a pseudonym.

If you're not the ideal reader for your own work, you're writing for the wrong reasons. Plus, your work sucks, and you will never understand why.