The age old question: Write to market or write that asteroid-hopping, fugitive, talking bologna sandwich time travel saga?
If you want to take the fastest route to supporting yourself with your writing, by all means write to market. Look at the highest grossing genres (romance) and what types of books are selling and write books like those.
If those are the books you love to write, double win for you.
You might find it difficult if you are writing without zest, without gusto (as Bradbury would say). The passion is what makes writing so incredible.
There’s a quote from Ego is the Enemy that stuck with me. I tell it to people when they ask me how writing is going. In his book, Ryan Holiday says, “Doing the work is enough.”
If you can get to a point where you’re writing stories you are passionate about, stories you can’t not write, I bet you won’t even think about the market because you’ll be deep in the story you love.
And, if doing the work is really enough; if the act of creating a story from nothing is enough to satisfy you, you don’t need to keep an eye on the market anyway.
My advice? Just work on writing stories you love and create a large catalog of work.
Jump. Build, Fly.
F.C. Shultz