How each Author Ecosystem thinks about and uses trends

Hi,

One of the most interesting ways to parse The Author Ecosystems is how each type deals with trends in the marketplace. Just like the easiest way for me to tell your Enneagram is by seeing what you default to in stress, one of the most decisive ways to learn an author’s ecosystem is to find out how they think about trends in the market and how it relates to their author business.

Depending on your ecosystem, one of these will likely resonate above the others and should give you an insight into how you to build your author business. It should also give you insight into how the other ecosystems think about their own author business to give you opportunities to evolve.

Remember, the goal of every ecosystem is to evolve and incorporate all five ecosystems into their business. However, before we can do that we need to find one line of business that works for us and resonates above the others. If you’re struggling to find success, it’s probably because the way you build your books is in direct contradiction to how your ecosystem thinking about trends.

Desert– Trend riding

A Desert is deep in the thick of their genre, gobbling up precious reader data in Facebook groups, sitting in silence and taking notes as they watch how the industry is flowing so they can accurately predict the next trend and ride it like a wave.

Deserts are experts in knowing when a trend is losing its arbitrage and have the preternatural ability to catch the next trend before too many authors saturate the market.

I define arbitrage as the difference, or delta, between supply and demand. When there is more demand than supply, then there is an arbitrage opportunity. The higher the arbitrage the more a Desert can milk that opportunity before the gap closes…

…and that gap will always close. Authors will always, given enough time, find the pockets of underserved readers and start writing for them, if for no other reason than because K-lytics exists to do this work for authors. Their entire business model is about showing authors emerging categories where the demand for a type of book exceeds the supply of them.

A Desert is simply conscious enough to recognize when the tides turn. If you’re not a Desert, you’ll probably enter a market well after the trend has peaked and you won’t be able to write fast enough to take advantage of the next one, either.

Grassland – Trend weaving

Grasslands highly value data just like Deserts, but instead of looking at the current trends, they are trying to peg an emerging trend 1-2 years down the road and move the industry toward that north star on the horizon. A great example of this is Monica Leonelle, who recognized the industry trend toward direct sales years ago and started to create content that buoyed our company to take advantage of them when those trends emerged. Along the way, she wrote about other things, but by the time direct sales became a hot topic we already had several books on the subject and were able to become a go-to source for information.

For a Grassland to stay relevant in the short term, they practice trend weaving, which allows them to take hot trends and thread them into their existing topic. While a Desert will hit a trend perfectly, a Grassland hits a trend at 90% of perfect because they are always trying to steer the conversation toward that topic.

An unhealthy Grassland will see a trend on the horizon and lose focus on how to weave their topic together with what’s happening currently to build relevancy until people are ready to talk about that topic.

I got a ton of blank stares for talking about Kickstarter back in 2015, well before the trend was even a blip on the horizon. Meanwhile, Monica was able to weave Kickstarter and direct sales into the prevailing narrative of the industry and make people care, so that by the time the Brandon Sanderson campaign raised $41 million we were positioned as the only expert with a book on the topic, and were able to leverage that into major opportunities.

Tundra – Trend stacking

Tundras love to stack evergreen tropes and seasonal trends on top of each other, making an irresistible package that turns every eye in an industry when they launch a book. They aren’t concerned with current or future trends. They are looking for trends that stand the test of time.

I made a huge error when moving my Godsverse Chronicle graphic novels into novels because the trends that worked at conventions or even in comics weren’t the same as the ones present in the book market. The first books I wrote (Death, Doom, Hell, and Ruin) missed the mark so badly that I wrote four new novels (Magic, Evil, Time, and Heaven) to slot in before them to help better hit those trends in the book market that I missed. I additionally had to change the titles and covers multiple times as I learned the market better and how to signal correctly to readers. Death started as Katrina Hates Everything before it became The Gods’ Sin, then Death Followed Behind Her until it finally became Death and got a new cover treatment. Before that, it was a series of three short novellas at a time well before short reads were in vogue.

I learned the evergreen tropes in fantasy were dragons and fairy tales (and to a lesser extent mythology), so my next series The Obsidian Spindle Saga, featured them both prominently, and I never had to change the titles (though I did redesign the covers for their retail release).

As the name suggests, Tundras are experts at seasonal launches that take into account the trends of a season. They are not looking to capitalize on a trend the first time through. Instead, they’re looking for a trend that has come around multiple times so they can capitalize when it comes around again. They are great at feeling the “vibes” and knowing when to launch for maximum impact and visibility.

For instance, I was the one who told Monica to drop everything so we could make The Kickstarter Accelerator happen right after Sanderson’s campaign ended. While Monica knew the trend was coming, I was able to know when the fervor was at its zenith.

Tundras often write 1-2 years ahead of their slate and sit on books until the vibes are right to strike. They use a combination of data, gut instinct, and seasonal buying behavior to plan their promotional calendar and sit right between the data-heavy ecosystems (Deserts and Grasslands) and the gut-heavy ecosystems (Forests and Aquatics) in how they think about trends.

Forest – Trend twisting

Forests seem to think that their ecosystem justifies writing any and every weird thing they want and that by holding to their unique energy they will eventually break through and have success due to sheer force of will alone, but that’s not quite true.

Yes, you need to listen to your gut more than other ecosystems, but a healthy Forest is very interested in trends. However, they are most interested in using existing trends and twisting them in a way that resonates with their readers in a different way than any of the ecosystems we mentioned above.

One example we learned about recently was a successful author who took the trope of the “alphahole” and asked, “What if instead of the leader of this shifter wolf pack was a jerk like I’ve read dozens of times, they worked more like a real wolf pack and all worked lovingly together”.

That twist takes a popular trope and gives it a specific twist that long-time fans will enjoy. They don’t write satire. They deeply love their genre, read broadly in it, and twist those tropes lovingly in ways that will delight readers. Too often people poke fun at genres they don’t like in books and that never works. Readers hate being insulted, but many can appreciate the flaws in their genre when they see them highlighted.

Forests should target their books to readers who have read broadly and understand the “canon” of a genre so they can appreciate the unique spin an author brings to the genre. Because of this, Forests can enter a genre late and have success while Deserts almost always need to be at the front of a trend setting the pace the reader expectations that Forests will twist.

One reason a Forest writes in so many different genres is because they find similar themes and tropes they can twist in different places. While a Grassland is loyal to a topic, a Forest is loyal to their themes, which is why their fans more than any other type will read anything they do. They aren’t reading the genre. They are reading the theme.

Aquatic– Trend making

Then you have the Aquatic, over in the corner making their own trend from scratch and building slowly over time to craft their thriving fanbase for their universe. However, they can learn a lot from the above ecosystems by taking hot trends and weaving them into their universe or twisting a trend in a way that brings in new readers.

In tech, there are five types of adopters: innovators, early adopters, the early majority, the late majority, and laggards. Each one of these has different buying habits and reasons for joining. The innovators are usually buying something because it’s new and exciting. Show them something new, like your universe, and they will buy just for the kitsch of it, but there are few of them compared to the other types. Aquatics tend to stick pretty close to the innovators, who supported them early, but in order to grow they need to move through the adopter stages by varying their output.

The classic example we use is Star Wars, which is so clearly an Aquatic franchise. Not only did George Lucas bring in new formats with books, action figures, and other merchandise, but more recently Kathleen Kennedy started using hot trends to bring in new fans. The Mandalorian is a very simple space western that appeals to a very different viewership than A New Hope. Every new TV series is a chance to bring in new fans. Marvel has started to do much the same thing, which makes sense since they are both owned by the same company and are both targeting the majority (both early and late) who make up most of their fans.

My friend wrote a cozy mystery series into their existing fantasy world to capture new readers and give new ways to hook people. Aquatics are very concerned with expanding into different modalities, but they can find a lot of value in writing into different areas to make their universe relatable to more people.

The Ecosystem Trend Cycle

One of the most interesting parts about the Author Ecosystems is what we’re calling the “Trend Cycle”, which looks like this:

• Aquatics start doing something interesting that gets traction with an audience.

• Grasslands notice that traction and start trying to figure out what is happening. Once they have it figured out, they start moving the industry toward it.

• Deserts see the massive arbitrage in a trend and start building the market for it until it finds equilibrium.

• Tundras seek out the evergreen trope in a trend and maximize it for profit and efficiency.

• Forests enter a mature market and twist stale trends to breath new life into them.

• Aquatics start the cycle again.

What’s really interesting about this is how it plays with the technology adoption curve.

The adoption curve concept, also known as the diffusion of innovations theory, was first introduced by Everett Rogers in his 1962 book, “Diffusion of Innovations.” Rogers was a sociologist who studied how new ideas and technologies spread within communities.

Rogers categorised people into five groups: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. He found that each group had its own characteristics and adopted new technology at a different rate. -Omniplex Learning

What this tells us is that Aquatics and Forests are both next to each other and on very different ends of that curve. It seems like Forests and Aquatics are next to each other, but Aquatics are really at the start of a new trend and the back end of an existing trend.

The reason Aquatics end up on either end of this curve is because their job is to find the point of improvement in any trend and pull them together into something new. A classic example is Southwest, which took dozens of problems in the industry and fixed them all at once, creating an ecosystem that couldn’t be replicated by anyone else. They only have a fractional share of the market, but those who use them are incredibly loyal.

Another great example is Apple, which for decades only had a 1-2% fractional share of the market, but because of how they integrated everything in a novel way they had loyal fans and no competition could replicate them.

Even though these were massively innovative companies, both Southwest and Apple took advantage of burgeoning markets to build around that took off. If they didn’t have the market rising behind them, the trend they created would have fizzled and, likely, died.

In books, we think of somebody like Cassandra Clare, who took Twilight, along with Supernatural suspense and mythology, and created something brand new, or an author like RJ Blain, who combined paranormal romance, romantic comedy, mystery, and thriller together in a way nobody had thought of before and now owns the category of “Magical Romantic Comedy…with a body count.”

Something else that this tells us is that Forests often enter markets too early, and Deserts need to exit markets before they hit that equilibrium. Meanwhile, Tundras are probably right in the middle, trying to time the market when excitement is at its peak. Deserts exiting a market should be a bellwether that it’s time to launch imminently.

It’s important to note this has nothing to do with how Deserts think of fandom. They are still trying to hit the middle of the market, but they want to enter a market when fewer people know about it, specifically fewer authors who know about it to drown readers with a flood of supply.

Aquatics generally create categories and then benefit from the whole rest of the adoption curve. All the good things point back to them, but if it doesn’t catch they will likely crash and burn. Then, Grasslands should enter in the Innovator/Early Adopter phase. Deserts should enter during the Early Adopter/Early Majority phase, Tundras should enter right at the zenith between Early and Late Majority before interest wanes, and Forests should enter in the Late Majority into mature markets.

Forests, more than any other ecosystem, are prone to see a trend and leap on it before the tropes are commonplace and when that happens their habit of twisting tropes brings confusion. If you look at the fantasy category, today’s series builds upon J.R.R. Tolkien, mythology, and everything that came before to make those tropes commonplace. Once the majority of people in a genre know the tropes, then you’re twists will be delightful instead of befuddling.

Grasslands, then, should spend a lot of time searching out Aquatics who are doing novel things, and Deserts should draft from Grasslands to find new upcoming trends. Meanwhile, Tundras should wait to enter a market until it’s at its peak, which is something the movie industry tries to track to time their releases.

Final Thoughts:

It feels from this analysis that Deserts and Grasslands almost need to go first into a trend to set the tropes. Once they’ve established the tone, timber, and tropes of how to write a book that fans will love and resonate with, a Tundra can analyze the evergreen tropes and Forests can twist those tropes to find new and interesting ways into their theme.

Perhaps even an Aquatic needs to set the trend by developing it from nothing into something viable before the Desert gets there. Then, the Desert picks up on something interesting and starts to build out the tropes until the category is mature, attracting the other ecosystems to join.

If that’s true, then one of the reasons a Forest wouldn’t be successful moving into a new trope too soon is because the category isn’t mature enough to have the tropes become a shared language between readers, and thus the twist the Forests give to those tropes confuses readers instead of delights them. Additionally, while it seems that Aquatics and Deserts are at opposite poles, they might have a more symbiotic relationship than previously thought, with Aquatics breathing life into a new subcategory and Deserts stabilizing it in kind.

One of the easiest ways to get healthy in your ecosystem is the stick closely to how it maximizes the value of both long-term and short-term trends. If you are a Desert, maybe don’t twist that trope because your subgenre isn’t ready for that yet. One reason Forests do well in established genres is because they are playing upon the shared language of the community. Until people have a base understanding of how tropes work, twisting them doesn’t resonate as well. Once a market is saturated, then people are looking for new twists on older stories.

In the same way, Tundras traffic in excitement, so launching that series before interest is at a fervor won’t do you any favors. Other ecosystems trying to get to #1 in the Amazon store fail to recognize that Tundras drop new releasing into a hungry audience, once the trend has come back around. They aren’t looking to stay ahead of a trend because they know if they wait, the trend will emerge again. Then, they will be ready to capitalize, and why if they aren’t using evergreen tropes their work will be in vain.

If you’re ready to evolve, trying to incorporate these different methods of engagement can fast-track your growth. Once you understand how each ecosystem deals with trends, it makes it easier to dissect their launches and find the special sauce that works for them, and how to bring that into your own business.