With AI slop, fleeting trends, and fickle algorithms, I’m leaning toward the latter
By Elanor R. L.
It’s a debate as old as time: should authors write stories tailored to the preferences of our target audiences or write what we want to read?
Writers can come down on either side of the issue. Many, like these, argue that if you want to sell your work and have it widely read, you should be writing with a specific reader demographic or target audience in mind, as opposed to yourself.
On the surface, this seems like sound advice. After all, if you tailor your book to what you think your target audience wants — or even write it based on market trends like the romantasy frenzy or the self-help craze — you’ll be more appealing and sell more books.
Right?
Authentically artificial
In the days before AI, this argument might’ve held a little water. But now, everyone can produce a “book” tailored to audience preferences. Everyone can run analytics, figure out what’s trending, have AI slap together a consumer product stuffed with keywords that cater to those trends, and throw it up on a few publishing platforms in time to catch the wave. The algorithm promotes them, they rake in a little dough, and do it all over again when the trends shift.
Andrew Mayden 
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