Mai Christy Thao’s Musings Blog of Mai Christy Thao, Historical Fantasy Paranormal Romance Writer

Is The Paranormal Market Declining?By maichristythao

Is it just me, or are we starting to see a fall in the paranormal trend? Nothing too drastic, but a small dip. That market is so over saturated, if you ask me. Although I’m not one to follow trends — write the book the way it was meant to be written and not because you’re trying to jump onto the current trend bandwagon, right? — it’ll be interesting to see what the next “trend” will be, and where it’ll take us.

I actually think the paranormal market was hurting for a while there. Now editors have gotten smarter. When the trend first became super hot, editors were buying up everything that came there way. Established authors who had no experience writing paranormal starting writing paranormals. Some became very good at it and you can tell they have a passion for it. Some, you could feel were only doing it because their editor told them to. Also, unnamed authors gave it a shot and were being bought, and as a result, the quality of paranormals being put out two years ago weren’t as good as they could have been. Now editors are more selective on who they buy, and the paranormal market is getting tougher to break into again — not like how it was 2 years ago. But it’s a good thing because the paranormals published today are more quality paranormals.

But I think the general consensus now is that people (even editors and agents) can only tolerate so many vampires and were-creatures books. (No offense to authors who write vampire and werewolves.)

A good author friend of mine writes funny, light contemporaries. Her publisher wanted her to right dark paranormals and dropped her when she refused to. Ouch. I think that is what is hurting some established authors. They’re being forced to write genres that they’re not comfortable writing. I think she could have done it if they had allowed her to write light paranormals. All she has to do is add a little magic to spice things up and still keep her funny contemporary voice that she’s so good at. But dark? That wasn’t her thing. And while I’m saddened her house has dropped her, I’m very proud of her for standing up for herself and knowing her limits.

Alright, so maybe it’s not so much a decline, but a shift in the way paranormals are now viewed and bought.

Would welcome any comments on the subject.

Tags: Editors, Market Trends, Paranormals, Publishers