When you write a book, you’re most importantly writing it for you. It will be written in your taste, with your ideas and your goal. That being said it’s important to also take your audience’s taste in mind. But where do you find a middle ground?

Ask your readers questions

If you’ve already established a fan base, ask questions and listen to their feedback. If a common comment is that you repeat words a lot, try not to do that as much. If they say they loved the element of surprise you add, keep on doing just that!

What does the general public look for in your genre?

If you haven’t got a fan base or are a new author, have a look where the demand lies. If you are writing a thriller and female antagonists are very popular, maybe include one. Don’t change your entire idea, but look for patterns.

Not everyone will have your views

It’s good to be neutral when writing. If you can tell from the book what the author’s views on many points are, it’s going to exclude a lot of people. Also, writing is not a place for any discriminative views. If you’re spouting racist or homophobic views that are promoting a bigoted agenda, consider keeping your ideas inside your head or perhaps educating yourself.  You would be surprised how many awful manuscripts publishers get that are just hateful and have no place in society.

Write for you, not for money

We’ve said this before and we’ll say it again. Authors who write for money rarely get it. When you hear success stories from best-selling authors, they wrote because they loved writing and when they made it, it was a bonus! Try and have that philosophy when you are writing