This marketing stuff gets a little easier. As I try different things, as I get more feedback from readers, I’m starting to realize who my readers are and what they want. Why me? Why not Stephen King? Or rather why me and Stephen King?
What they want tells me how to market (not that I’m good at it, but the instructions are there). And it tells me what I write, even though it’s all over the place.
The people who just write cozies or stories about colonizing outer space or epic fantasy, they can start with their genre and extrapolate and define themselves from there. Me, I tried to observe what was common across what I write, but it was too hard. It wasn’t until people started talking to me about my books that it started to make sense.
Finding out what people like about your work: a bootstrap.
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If you like this post, check out By Dawn’s Bloody Light, a cheesy ’80s horror novelette, which I’m not gonna pretend is as good as Stephen King, but at least follows the same tradition.