Rejected Blog Ideas 2
Yes, it’s that time again, the time when I run low on ideas for a blog so I decide to write about the things I decided not to write about. I’m assured it’s very “meta” although that assurance comes from the voices in my head, so maybe take it with a grain of salt. Anyway, despite the weird shit that often shows up on this blog, there are some topics that are too far out there or underdeveloped to get written out. Here are a few ideas I had that failed to make the cut to full-feature.
The Exploding Audiobook Market
The long and short of this one was that it was a long idea that just came out too short in words. Basically, the audiobook market is booming right now, with lots of users joining audible and more authors starting to depend on that income to support themselves. And that’s really cool, something totally worth talking about. The problem is, the second sentence in this paragraph pretty much says it all, and it’s hard to make a blog out of a topic that can be summarized so easily.
True, I could have gone into some other aspects of audiobooks, but between writing about how to make them and doing yearly lists of my favorites, I didn’t leave a lot of water in that well to pull from. Even talking about the technology route is too easy to sum up. Ready? Audiobooks are exploding in popularity because 1) most of us have phones that can store entire libraries of the things, eliminating the need for bulky CDs, and 2) More and more cars have Bluetooth/aux functionality allowing us to play those audiobooks on trips. Boom, that right there covers most of the technology factors. I might have been able to drill down a little on specifics, but not enough to be worth a real blog unless I added in a ton of padding.
Bottom line: audiobooks are great and it’s a wonderful time to get into the market. And that pretty much says it all.
Genetically Average
When I first got a “Superhero Genetics Test” as a Christmas gift, I had 2 thoughts: 1) Can you turn your genes into vodka if you drink enough? And 2) Hey, this will make a cool blog. The test was a basic genetic screening panel that checked to see if you had genes indicating you would be stronger, faster, or smarter (basic superhero skills) than the average person. I swabbed my mouth and sent it in, waiting to see what my results would be.
So what was the problem? Well the title kind of gave it away: I’m genetically average on all accounts. And that’s fine, but it’s also kind of boring. If I’d gotten even one that was above normal, I could have written about me trying to make my own costume and go out to fight crime with my… let’s say speed for this hypothetical. I’d go out and try to help people, mistakenly thinking genetics would give me an advantage and ultimately getting injured or my ass-kicked. None of those jokes would work with an average rating across the board though. I tried doing a blog about Average Man, but none of the directions I found for it worked in such a short context, so I ended up ditching the idea entirely.
Fun Side-Note: I also got a genetic testing kit for my dog, Dr. Winston. That one turned out to be super enlightening, because while I’d always assumed he was a mutt, it turned out he was a half-breed. Half-Corgi, half-Australian Shepard. Kind of a limited audience on that one though, so no blog there either.
Should You Stick to One Genre?
So I didn’t know this when I started, but conventional wisdom says a writer, especially a new one, should stick to a single genre. If they can swing it, one series in one genre is considered ideal. Now obviously that’s not how I work, and since I’ve talked to people who were surprised I managed to stay self-sufficient using my multi-genre approach it seemed worth examining. Was conventional wisdom right, or had the market evolved to tolerate authors writing across multiple different genres?
The problem here was that I couldn’t stretch “Fuck if I know” out for a whole blog, and that’s the only honest conclusion I’d be able to present. Digging into this topic turns up all sorts of competing ideas, philosophies, and experiences in regards to multi-genre writing. If you care, do a Google search and you’ll find tons of discussion on the topic. Which was part of the issue: there doesn’t seem to be a consensus to reach on this one. Some authors only succeed when they stick to genre; others find a lot of success by branching out. It’s one of those weird things about this job that doesn’t make sense, and you make peace with that the longer you’re doing this gig. But making peace with it and being able to meaningfully contribute to the conversation are different things. I ultimately realized that my own experience was little more than a lone drop in a huge bucket of conflicting accounts, and accepted that this was just too big of an issue to get my head around.
For what it’s worth, I’ll say this much: the level of debate means that clearly it is possible to succeed writing in multiple genres, otherwise there wouldn’t be much to discuss in the first place. Now whether it’s the right fit for you or not is going to be a case-by-case thing, which is no surprise since that tends to be how these always end up anyway. If you feel the desire to stretch yourself across multiple genres, then I’d say go for it. Writing the thing you’re passionate about is usually the best strategy to undertake. On the other hand, if you like your genre, then don’t force yourself out of it without cause. Either tactic is viable; it’s just a matter of finding a way to make it work for you.