(Crossposted from r/romance authors)

Hi guys! So happy to be here.

I asked this question over on romance authors but I thought since there is a bigger audience over here, I should take a shot asking here as well. I have been writing for a while for fun, but now I kind of want to make something of it and earn a nice side income. I am currently writing an erotic romance novel and in the spirit of writing to the market, I am researching what usually does well in my sub genre. I do read in this sub genre a lot and while I love one particular authors work ( I think she has the perfect combination of filth and substance) I’ve noticed that her books are not super popular and she seems to get a lot of reviews complaining about the very distinctive “voice” in her novels (which I also love). Her novels are also more descriptive and lower on dialogue for a romance novel.

There is an another author who is super mega successful in this subgenre, but to be quite honest I don’t really enjoy her books very much. They’re not too bad and some are ok, but they’re very… generic. Forgettable. Notably, this may also be because a lot of people copy her style so it does not seem as special anymore.

When I began writing, I took a lot of inspiration from the first author because I loved her work so much and didn’t really do any research on whether her books actually do well. I mean, don’t get me wrong she does have a small fan base and based on her book ratings more people like her books than don’t, but she definitely has less engagement and reviews than most in her field as an older author. So I guess my question is, in writing for the market, do I craft stories that appeal to a broader audience even though I don’t really enjoy reading the types of books I write (follow author b), or do I write the type of stories I enjoy reading, even if it makes it potentially harder to market (follow author a)?