Sword With Two Razor Edges

Judging by two writer's websites, there is a marketing problem going on that can only be corrected by authors-to-be.

The racks are jammed with dystopian/dragon/vampire/romance novels, which isn't a problem in itself. Those books are selling.

Maybe.

Authors-in-training are writing ever more of these. There's something to be said for writing to the market, except for two things.

How would yours not get lost among all those others?

How could you write one so it would stand out, say something new or appealing above and beyond all the rest? Can you do that so the manuscript is not so far-away from the marketable, it won't see birth?

Oh... and how do you you jump into a hot area when this industry is so glacial?

I've been pitching a complex outside-the-rabble eminently marketable (I assume) novel. The query rejections seem to run in an odd direction. Nobody wants to take a risk on anything that's not like the others. And the others are clogging the racks, making others like them unmarketable.

You want to know what it takes me to read an unknown book by an unknown author? Plenty. I need to keep hearing buzz that makes me want to take the shot on a reading. I don't have the time or ambition to read every book that swoops by; I'm trying to be purposeful and efficient in my reading.

I don't know what it would take to get more agents to just read the whole thing, except through the insufficient nibble that is your typical query letter. I sympathize with them, because if I rarely have the time for a full read (I think three this year), then how is an agent going to read several dozen fulls a week?

I know one who is melting her slush pile by hiring several interns to just freakin' read the fulls she already requested, which really can't be many. But they gobble that time away, and this is her way to mine that potential gold.

Not that I'm playing whiny author, here.

I make a living out of solving other people's problems. I'm a white knight, chief mechanic, white hat hacker, home handyman, impromptu traffic cop, self-reliant self-starting gung-ho mercenary soldier.

Surely, a hard-wired personality like that should be a net plus to any agent and publisher. I understand the whole marketing idea behind pushing book buyer's hot buttons, and I await my cue.

I'm showing some frustration, here, but this is actually for your benefit.

You see, I have a slogan I'm living by:

The Lord will provide.

You just don't know how.

Or when.

This is the kind of "getting religion" I'll gladly share.