I once read advice by a successful author, who claimed that if you want to build up a loyal fanbase, then you want to have people who absolutely hate your work, because if nobody cares enough to hate your books then they’re not distinctive enough and nobody will love them either:
The best way to find your target audience is to write something original! When you’re truly original, the mainstream readers of that genre will often consider your work outrageous, or shocking, or insane, or unique, or weird, or all these things, but that’s okay. If it’s your original voice, stand proud and pick one of your books to slam down the throats of the entire obvious audience. Then be strong enough to deal with the high percentage of hate reviews you will certainly get from those who don’t “get” your work. A lot of authors can’t handle hate reviews. But a bad review simply means someone outside your target audience found your book. The angrier the review, the further removed from your target audience they are. But along with the hate reviews, you’ll get some great ones.
The reason you’ll get some great reviews for your original writing is because I don’t care what you’re selling, there’s a market for it! What I’m saying, if you’re not offending a significant number of readers, your writing is probably not very original. And the less original you’re writing, the less loyal your fan base will be. [...]
Yes, Saving Rachel was my third book, but when I wrote it, I realized it would be the key to finding my target audience, because it divided people like crazy. Most either hated it or loved it. If I had known then what I know now, Saving Rachel would’ve been my first book. But that’s not important. What’s important is that you write a unique, original book that will divide the reading world into two camps: those who love your writing and those who hate it. Those who hate it will give you angry, spiteful reviews. That’s the bad news. The good news is they’ll never buy your books again, so that will end their angry reviews!
I know what you’re thinking: “Why is alienating half the book buying audience a good thing?” The answer is it proves you’re original. And the more unique and original your writing, the deeper and more loyal your target audience will be. I mean, there’s a limit—you don’t want everyone to hate your work! Ideally, you’d hope for 60% to love your Target Book, 30% to hate it, and you’ll always have 10% who can’t decide, which means they’re probably open to trying another of your books.
Once you know your target audience you’ll write directly to them. If you don’t get a lot of bad reviews with your Target book, you’re not original enough. I’m not talking about your initial reviews. Almost all of those will be positive. I’m talking about the reviews you get after your book starts moving up significantly. That’s when the bad reviews start creeping in. But that’s a good thing because it will help you identify and grab the attention of your Target Audience.
(That said, according to the Amazon reviews of that book, most of his success came from paid reviews, so might want to take what he says with a grain of salt.)
I once read advice by a successful author, who claimed that if you want to build up a loyal fanbase, then you want to have people who absolutely hate your work, because if nobody cares enough to hate your books then they’re not distinctive enough and nobody will love them either:
Even assuming that that’s true, phrasing it that way tempts people to think “well, no fans hate my book, so I should do things that make fans hate my book”.
It’s a bad sign that nobody pays for your product with a stolen credit card too, for a similar reason: if your sales are low, there may not be enough sales that even one sale using a stolen credit card is expected. But you wouldn’t want to say “nobody’s buying my book using a stolen credit card, so let’s see how I can increase the sales using stolen credit cards”.
I once read advice by a successful author, who claimed that if you want to build up a loyal fanbase, then you want to have people who absolutely hate your work, because if nobody cares enough to hate your books then they’re not distinctive enough and nobody will love them either:
(That said, according to the Amazon reviews of that book, most of his success came from paid reviews, so might want to take what he says with a grain of salt.)
Even assuming that that’s true, phrasing it that way tempts people to think “well, no fans hate my book, so I should do things that make fans hate my book”.
It’s a bad sign that nobody pays for your product with a stolen credit card too, for a similar reason: if your sales are low, there may not be enough sales that even one sale using a stolen credit card is expected. But you wouldn’t want to say “nobody’s buying my book using a stolen credit card, so let’s see how I can increase the sales using stolen credit cards”.
Sure.
Sounds like a great way to excuse writing trash.