Let Them Expect You to Follow Trends
The Terror of Trends
You're at your local bookstore café, laptop open, working on the fantasy novel you've been passionate about for the past year.
A fellow writer slides into the chair across from you—someone you know from the regional writers' group who always seems to have their finger on the pulse of the industry.
"Still working on that dragon book?" they ask, glancing at your screen. "You know fantasy is kind of over, right? Everyone's writing BookTok romance now. Have you seen how much money those authors are making? You should pivot to enemies-to-lovers contemporary romance. That's where the readers are."
Your fingers pause over the keyboard. You love your fantasy world, your magic system, the characters who feel like old friends. But... maybe they're right.
Maybe you're wasting time on a genre that's already peaked. Maybe smart authors chase the trends instead of following their creative instincts.
"Or," they continue, warming to their theme, "dystopian is making a comeback. You could probably rework your fantasy into a dystopian setting pretty easily. Just drop the magic, add some oppressive government, and boom—you're relevant again."
Suddenly, the story you've been excited to tell feels outdated, unmarketable, naive.
Maybe you should abandon this project and write what's selling instead.
But what if their advice—however well-intentioned—represents the exact kind of thinking that leads to overcrowded markets full of forgettable books?
What if chasing trends is actually the fastest way to make your work invisible?
This is where the Let Them Theory becomes essential for protecting your creative authenticity.
Just as we've explored with timeline pressure and other publishing pressures, the expectation that you should chase market trends often comes from people who fundamentally misunderstand how readers discover and connect with books.
The Trend-Chasing Trap That Kills Creativity
The pressure to follow trends feels logical on the surface.
If vampire romance is hot, write vampire romance. If dystopian fiction is dominating bestseller lists, pivot to dystopian. If BookTok is driving massive sales for enemies-to-lovers romance, jump on that bandwagon.
It seems like basic business sense: give the people what they want.
But this logic ignores several crucial realities about how publishing actually works.
First, there's a significant lag time between when you see a trend and when you can capitalize on it.
By the time a genre or trope is visible enough to be called a "trend," hundreds of other writers have already had the same brilliant idea to chase it.
You're not jumping on a bandwagon—you're joining a traffic jam.
Consider the timeline: You see that dystopian fiction is hot, so you spend six months writing a dystopian novel, another three months revising it, two months querying agents or preparing for self-publication, and finally release your book eighteen months after you first noticed the trend.
By then, the market is oversaturated with dystopian fiction, readers are experiencing genre fatigue, and agents are actively avoiding anything dystopian because they've seen too much of it.
Industry professionals often perpetuate trend-chasing advice because they're trying to make sense of an unpredictable market.
Editors and agents look at what sold last quarter and assume similar books will sell next quarter.
Publishing conferences are full of panels about "what's hot now," as if creativity should operate like stock trading.
The creative death that comes from writing what you don't love is perhaps the most devastating cost of trend-chasing.
When you abandon your authentic interests to write what's supposedly marketable, your passion disappears from the page.
Readers can sense when an author is going through the motions versus when they're writing from genuine enthusiasm.
The very quality that makes books memorable—the author's unique voice and perspective—gets diluted when you're trying to sound like everyone else.
Trend-chasing also keeps you perpetually behind the curve.
While you're writing your vampire romance because vampires were hot last year, the authors who will define the next trend are busy writing something completely different—something that comes from their unique vision rather than market analysis.
Let Them Chase Shiny Objects
Here's where the Let Them Theory protects your creative integrity: You stop trying to predict and follow market movements that are largely unpredictable anyway.
Let them jump from trend to trend, always one step behind the market they're trying to chase.
Let them exhaust themselves trying to game a system that changes faster than they can adapt.
Let them not understand that by the time you can see a trend clearly enough to follow it, it's already approaching oversaturation.
Let them believe that market analysis is more valuable than storytelling passion when it comes to creating work that resonates with readers.
Let them chase whatever BookTok or publishing Twitter declares hot this month, not realizing that authentic voices cut through trend noise better than trend-followers ever could.
Let them miss the fundamental truth that readers don't actually want more of the same—they want something fresh that reminds them why they loved a genre in the first place.
Let them compete in overcrowded markets while you develop your unique corner of the literary landscape.
Most importantly, let them burn out on writing books they don't care about while you maintain the creative passion that sustains long-term careers.
Their relationship with market trends is their business; your relationship with your authentic creative voice is yours.
Let Me Write What Only I Can Write
While you're letting them chase market signals, you get to focus on developing the creative work that can only come from you.
Let me write the stories that demand to be told through my unique perspective.
Let me develop my authentic voice instead of trying to sound like whoever's currently popular.
Let me explore the themes, characters, and worlds that genuinely fascinate me rather than the ones that seem most marketable.
Let me trust that passionate writing finds its audience, even if that audience doesn't match current trend predictions. When I write from genuine enthusiasm, that energy translates to the page in ways that calculated trend-following simply cannot replicate. Readers respond to authenticity, and authenticity comes from writing what you care about, not what you think will sell.
Let me build a brand around my actual interests and expertise rather than jumping between genres based on market fluctuations. When readers discover my work because they love my unique take on fantasy, they're more likely to follow my career and recommend my books than if they found me through trend-chasing that doesn't reflect my actual strengths.
Let me understand that niches often outperform attempts to appeal to everyone. The fantasy readers who are hungry for fresh takes on magic systems will be more excited about my authentic fantasy novel than romance readers who are already oversupplied with enemies-to-lovers stories. Better to be the best option for a specific audience than a mediocre option for a general one.
The success stories prove that following creative instincts often works better than following trends.
J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter when children's fantasy was considered unmarketable.
Suzanne Collins wrote The Hunger Games when publishers thought dystopian fiction was dead.
E.L. James wrote Fifty Shades when erotic romance was a tiny niche market.
Gillian Flynn wrote Gone Girl when psychological thrillers weren't trending.
These authors succeeded not because they chased trends, but because they wrote compelling stories from their authentic interests.
Their passion for their subject matter came through in ways that created new trends rather than following existing ones.
More recently, authors like Rebecca Ross found massive success writing romantic fantasy when the market was supposedly saturated, and Taylor Jenkins Reid built a devoted following by consistently writing historical fiction with emotional depth rather than chasing whatever genre was hot.
These authors understood that authentic enthusiasm trumps trend analysis every time.
Finding and Trusting Your Authentic Creative Voice
Developing confidence in your unique creative vision requires both self-awareness and courage.
You need to identify what genuinely excites you as a writer, then trust that enthusiasm enough to follow it even when the market seems to be pointing elsewhere.
Start by examining what you love to read when no one is watching.
What genres, themes, and storytelling approaches draw you in repeatedly?
What kinds of characters fascinate you?
What questions about human nature or society do you find yourself exploring in conversations?
Your authentic creative voice lives at the intersection of your natural interests and your unique life experiences.
Consider what you bring to your chosen genre that other writers might not.
Maybe you have professional experience that informs your approach to certain themes.
Maybe your cultural background offers a fresh perspective on familiar tropes.
Maybe your personal struggles have given you insights that could deepen character development in meaningful ways.
Pay attention to the projects that energize you versus the ones that feel like work.
When you're writing from authentic interest, the work flows differently. You find yourself thinking about the story during your commute, dreaming about characters, getting excited about plot solutions.
When you're writing from market calculation, everything feels harder because you're fighting against your natural creative instincts.
Balancing market awareness with creative authenticity doesn't mean ignoring business realities entirely.
You can understand genre conventions and reader expectations while still bringing your unique voice to those elements.
You can write a romance novel that hits the emotional beats readers expect while exploring themes that genuinely interest you. You can write fantasy that includes popular elements like found family or enemies-to-lovers while building a magic system that reflects your personal fascinations.
The key is leading with your authentic interests and allowing market considerations to inform the execution rather than driving the entire creative direction.
Write the vampire romance you're genuinely excited about, not the vampire romance you think will sell.
Write the dystopian novel that explores questions you actually care about, not the one that checks all the current trend boxes.
Why Authentic Voices Win in Oversaturated Markets
The irony of trend-chasing is that it leads to exactly the kind of market oversaturation that makes individual books invisible.
When everyone is writing the same trendy elements, authenticity becomes the differentiating factor that makes certain books stand out.
Readers are sophisticated. They can sense when an author is writing from genuine passion versus when they're following a marketing formula.
The books that become word-of-mouth sensations usually have something authentic and unexpected to offer, even within familiar genres.
This doesn't mean you should write in a vacuum, ignoring what readers enjoy. But there's a difference between understanding your audience and abandoning your creative instincts to chase market trends.
The best approach is often to write authentically within the genres and themes that genuinely interest you, then present that work professionally to the readers who are most likely to appreciate your unique take.
Your creative authenticity is actually your competitive advantage in a crowded marketplace.
While other authors are all chasing the same trends and producing similar work, you can offer something distinctive that reflects your unique perspective and interests.
Building Your Career on Creative Integrity
The most sustainable author careers are built on creative integrity rather than market timing.
When you consistently write from your authentic interests, you develop a recognizable voice and perspective that readers can rely on.
You build a brand around who you actually are rather than who you think the market wants you to be.
This approach also protects you from the boom-and-bust cycle of trend-chasing.
When vampire romance stops being trendy, the authors who genuinely love writing paranormal romance continue thriving because they weren't just chasing a market—they were following their creative passion.
When dystopian fiction falls out of favor, the authors who were only writing it for market reasons have to start over, while the authors who love exploring themes of power and resistance just pivot to new settings for the same underlying interests.
Your job as a writer is not to predict what readers will want in two years.
Your job is to write compelling stories that showcase your unique voice and perspective.
Let them expect you to follow trends while you follow your creative instincts and build something that lasts.
Next time, we'll explore the final pressure in this series: "Let Them Say You're 'Just' Indie"—because even when you're writing authentically and publishing on your own timeline, some people will still try to diminish your accomplishments with dismissive language.
This post is part of the Let Them Theory for Authors series. Explore the complete series for more insights on building creative confidence and professional boundaries.
