M.B NOVELS®

Every writer has heard the advice: write what sells.

It’s usually presented as practical wisdom, the kind of sentence people say with reassuring certainty. Publishing is a business, they’ll remind you. Readers have preferences. Trends and genres exist for a reason. If you want people to buy your books, you should probably give them what they’re already buying.

I understand the logic. I just don’t think it’s a very interesting way to make art.

If everyone is busy writing whatever sells today, who’s writing the books people will want to read tomorrow?

The market is always looking backward. It can only measure what has already worked. It cannot predict the strange novel that creates an entirely new conversation. It cannot calculate the voice no one knew they were waiting for. Every trend begins with a book that, at some point, wasn’t following one.

That’s why I’ve never been particularly interested in writing toward the market. Markets move too fast, and books move too slowly. By the time you’ve identified a trend, outlined your novel, written eighty thousand words, revised them three times, and finally published the book, the conversation has already changed. The stories dominating bestseller lists today weren’t written in response to today’s market. They were written years ago, before anyone knew they would become the market.

More importantly, I think writing to sell changes the questions a writer asks. Instead of wondering whether a scene feels true, you start wondering whether it’s commercial enough for a movie. Instead of asking whether a character would actually make a terrible decision, you ask whether readers will find them “relatable.” Instead of following the story wherever it naturally leads, you begin negotiating with an imaginary audience that hasn’t even opened the book.

Somewhere along the way, we’ve confused writing for readers with writing to satisfy algorithms.

Of course I want people to read my books. Every writer does. Stories don’t come alive until they find someone willing to carry them around in their mind. But I don’t believe readers need another version of what they’ve already seen a hundred times. I think they’re hungrier than the industry often gives them credit for.

When people hear writers talk about authenticity, they often assume we’re advocating for provocation. As if the goal were simply to offend people or reject every convention on principle. Writing boldly isn’t about being controversial for the sake of it. A shocking sentence is easy. An honest one is much harder. Sometimes honesty is controversial simply because it refuses to simplify itself. Sometimes the most rebellious thing a writer can do is resist smoothing out the rough edges of an idea until it becomes universally agreeable. Universal agreement has never been a particularly compelling artistic ambition.

In fact, I find it slightly suspicious.

If absolutely everyone loves a book, I start wondering what uncomfortable truth it politely avoided. Art has always been at its most alive when it risks disagreement. Not because disagreement is inherently valuable, but because saying something real inevitably means someone won’t like hearing it.

Some of my favorite books possess something infinitely more valuable than perfection: a distinct point of view. You can feel another human being behind every sentence instead of a committee trying to maximize appeal.

That’s what I hope to leave behind whenever I write.

I want to write books that could only have been written by me, with all the strange interests, contradictions, obsessions, and questions that come with being the person holding the pen.

Maybe that isn’t the fastest path to commercial success. But literature has never been built by people playing it safe. Every classic was once considered risky. Every original voice sounded unfamiliar before it sounded inevitable. Every book that changed the conversation began by ignoring someone who insisted it wasn’t what readers wanted.

So yes, I write to annoy people who tell writers to “write what sells.” Not because I dislike success. Not because I think popular books are somehow less valuable. And certainly not because I believe struggling makes art better.

I write to annoy the belief that sales should come before sincerity. That originality is a luxury. That the market deserves the first and final vote on what gets written.

Stories are not products first. And if one day those stories sell millions of copies, wonderful. If not, I’d still rather spend my life writing books I believe in than books I calculated. Because trends expire, but a genuine voice doesn’t.