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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Twilight was a bestseller. It's ok not to like them. [/quote]

It's really not.

Full disclosure: I'm a writer who was recently dropped by her agent because three of my books just didn't sell. In her words, "They're lovely and well-written, but publishers are looking for stories with wider appeal."

For the past year, I've been on a hunt to figure out what makes the stories with wide appeal so successful - but because I don't personally enjoy, it's a struggle. I would like to find out what I'm missing.[/quote]

This may sound mean but about 10 years ago I told my ladies' book club to stop picking fiction books with themes tied to the Holocaust (family tragedy) and WW2 (drama, romance).  Like All The Light We Cannot See.

They moved on to other mass market unhappy books like Where the Crawdad Sings and Art of Racing in the Rain.  But I couldn't get them to read Gone Girl (which I loved) because it was too harsh.

I also tried to get them to read a non-fiction book about a small-town bridal store called "The Magic Room".  They agreed. Then only one other person read it.

I dropped out of book club.  It was really more of an excuse to go out to lunch.

I was also unable to identify what attracted the group approval.  Maybe it's how simple the vocabulary is?  Maybe it's the novelty of the plot twists?

One thing I can say is that the Internet makes it more possible for authors to self-publish and build a fanbase.  Then go to real publishers.

I have watched this happen with Harry Potter and Star Wars (Reylo) fanfiction authors.

The best example is Olivie Blake (Alexene Farol Follmuth).

Her writing is actually very compelling.  But her bestselling Atlas 6 trilogy badly "lost the plot" in the last book.

https://www.olivieblake.com/

So maybe you could try to build an organic customer base for yourself through Internet marketing.  Then you can stay true to your own style.
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