However, as an experiment, last year I indie published…completley on my own with KDP…an abridged version of an erotic romance novel, without the sex scenes. I don’t like to call it self-censorship because I only removed about 7,000 words of erotica. I also published the unabridged version at the same time. I did this to give readers choices, and to prove once and for all an erotic romance can stand alone without the sex scenes.

It’s been an interesting experience, mainly because critics who have said I write too many erotic scenes went dead silent with the abridged version that had no sex scenes. Not one comment. And nothing in the storyline changed.

I’d love to make my hero attend certain worship services or celebrate a holiday a certain way…but I’m pretty sure that would perplex some readers and alienate others. My stuff doesn’t qualify as “inspirational romance”, so at present, my “niche” doesn’t exist.

It seems to me that ultimately you have to ask yourself:
1. do I want to write what I want to read (and what, perhaps, nobody else wants)?
2. Or do I want to be published?

I suppose the answers to both questions CAN be “yes”…but I suspect you have to achieve the second before you have luxury of doing the first.

I think “Americans only want to read stories set in the States” is a sign that the publisher is convinced that his audience is ignorant and happy to remain so. He is afraid to rock the boat and do the work involved in actually selling something new and (gasp!) instructive or educational.

K’naan is smart. He undertands he has to acculturate (not assimilate) to his listeners in order to be successful in the U.S. market. Once he gains a base of followers he can negotiate and use his resources to bring awareness to the problems in his country (Wyclef did this in Haiti).

Also, setting is very different then writing lyrics that are unrelatable to Americans. A friend of mine is from Liberia. She had to leave her country when she was 13 because war broke out, literally, in her backyard. Her family saw people get killed and raped. The hardships people face in the U.S. are very different. Eminem does a fantastic job uncensoring himself to deliver a message both inner-city and suburbanites can relate to.

Peronally, I don’t think about the market. I write what I want to read. But I know a handful of authors who chase the market, and make a good living doing so. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, and if I were in their circumstances, I might do the same. As far as pressure to build a platform interfering with my creativity: If I thought of it this way, it would probably be a detriment. I look at social networking as buidling relationships with people. People inspire me to write, so it goes hand in hand.

It’s probably easy for me to say what I’m going to say next because I’m still an unpublished writer, but I’m going to say it anyway. I’d rather be unpublished and still write what I want and what I truly believe in, than be published and forced to write what some people think that other people want to read.
I do hope to be published (not self-published) in the US one day, but I write fantasy and invent my own worlds, so I don’t have the same problem with setting, and I would be open to minor changes that increase the novel’s chances of getting sold, as long as it doesn’t compromise the “bigger picture”, the reason I wrote it in the first place. So no, I don’t write thinking about marketing because that would completely demotivate me and I would take up fly-flishing as a hobby instead. I write for my ideal reader, who is open-minded and capable of critical thought.

And I agree with Matt, above, who says what I wanted to say but couldn’t find the right words for.

If an author also develops a good strength of character, as any author should, then the best way that the author can contrive to broadcast their inner voice will not only be compatible with but will entice the broader marketplace.

Aside from my own experience, I know Canadian writers who have never lived in the US but set their books there because they want American publishers. I also know Canadians (Susan Juby, in particular) who sets her books here in BC and has tapped into the US market. But whatever you choose to do, I do think the market comes in to it one way or another unless you write without it in mind on purpose.