I really should have investigated this before writing Sentry, but even if I had, I would still not have chosen to write any other sort of book. Call me bloody-minded, but I wanted to write the sort of book I wanted to read and be known for, not necessarily one that is the most popular. The thing is, I am a bloke who is into Sci-Fi, so why on earth would I want to write a romantic novel? It's just not me, and to be honest, I would be appalling at it. But guess what - the romantic novelist is the person most likely to make a decent living out of writing! Damn. An obvious reference here is Fifty Shades Of Grey, but another great romantic novelist is Jilly Cooper. Get this - one of my male mates at uni was reading her novels as a teenager; that's the reach she had, and still has!
Oh, and would anyone like to guess at the genre which generally makes the least in sales? Yup, Science Fiction. Again, damn and blast.
But all might not be lost, I'm thinking, (optimistically as ever!). These days the kids are wearing t-shirts with "Dork" and "Geek" written on them (man, this blog will become outdated really soon!), so perhaps I have stumbled upon a timely gift in terms of my marketing (to be covered soon in another post). In a world where everyone is now encouraged to be themselves, perhaps it is cooler now to embrace your inner-nerd than it ever was. I've been doing it for years, playing computer games (when computers actually needed a keyboard and tonnes of patience to get any game to load, to the present day), discussing actual science with my friends, rather than whatever boy/girl band had just split up, and encouraging people to visit museums.
So perhaps this is now the age of the Sci-Fi writer. After all, it's the 21st Century and we're all living in The Future!
Now then, where's my hover-board floated off to...?
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