Know. Your. Market.

Just came from a Better Site Than This One, and there was a discussion going on about the market. Not THE market, YOUR market, as in, "You have to know your market."

Study your readership, they say, so you can provide the kind of writing they're used to, pace-wise, character-wise, plot-wise. Give your audience the genre it wants.

This seems backwards to me. "My" readers are people who read my book. They're not part of my audience before they've read it, are they? And if they like it, then isn't it fair to assume they like my pacing, my characters, my plots? The question isn't whether I know what they want, but whether they like what I've got.

Several people in the industry have advised me to pick a genre and write for it. Failing that, write something first and then be prepared to classify it.

Not. My. Job. I write it, I don't categorize it. If you sent it to me at the library, I would classify it as fiction and shelve it alphabetically by author. Which would put me somewhere between Don DeLillo and Charles Dickens. Not a bad place to be.

I've met members of my audience, and it's hard to see them as a market. They're readers, is what they are, and God bless them, every one.