I've been looking at the bookstore and Internet book sites' holiday offerings lately, wondering if these seasonally targeted stories are worth writing. I mean, they sell mostly in November and December, but then what? I'd like a book to have appeal all year long, not only during the holidays.
Now, I've written one holiday themed story, Cinderella Tannenbaum, which deals with a woman in need of a date for family gatherings so she searches SchoolChums.com for her High School crush. However, this is a short story, not a full length novel. I put a few weeks of my time into it, rather than several months. When I looked up my sales figures recently, I noticed this story is my number one seller. It was also an ECataRomance Reviewers' Choice Award nominee the year it was released.
Now, I've written one holiday themed story, Cinderella Tannenbaum, which deals with a woman in need of a date for family gatherings so she searches SchoolChums.com for her High School crush. However, this is a short story, not a full length novel. I put a few weeks of my time into it, rather than several months. When I looked up my sales figures recently, I noticed this story is my number one seller. It was also an ECataRomance Reviewers' Choice Award nominee the year it was released.
So for me - yes - it was worth it to write a seasonal story.
So what do you think? Do you buy holiday themed romances? Do you write them?
So what do you think? Do you buy holiday themed romances? Do you write them?
4 comments:
I wrote a Valentine's Day themed story, but I normally don't read holiday books. Partly because I'm not much into the holiday season, since there's no family around, and we don't do the "big" one anyway. As a matter of fact, the opening line for my first draft of my story was "Bah Humbug."
I suppose I should go back and look at sales after February to see if other folks like holiday stories. For me, it was more of accepting the challenge of writing to a theme and with a deadline. And my daughter was visiting, so we working on it together, which was also fun.
Hmm, I've never written one w/ a specific holiday theme, but I definitely buy them. I like Christmas stories a lot and I'll read them any time of year. Sometimes I buy them at Christmas, then don't get to that section of my tbr pile until June :)
I've bought them and read them and loved them.
Dara, here's hoping that your holiday novelle experience foreshadows mine. In such tough economic times, I'm banking that a little holiday ebook might just make the perfect holiday gift.
Or, I could fall on my writerly butt LOL. But I have to say that I had more fun writing Believe than any book to date. It truly turned into the book of my heart. It almost wrote itself. :)
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