The Market Wants “Joy” in 2022. Ignore the Market.

It’s National Hunt for Happiness week, and I’m trying to figure out what that means. At the same time, agents and editors are adding “joy” to their #MSWLs for 2022, and booksellers are ordering more cozy mysteries, romance, and uplifting historical fiction to their shelves, according to The Bookseller website.

I know happiness is a choice, at least according to over a dozen self-help books with that title (or variation of it). Closely related is the advice to find joy, which you’ll discover in the title of more than a bazillion books. And yes, that’s a mathematical term. Please don’t waste time looking it up. Just keep reading.

I’ve never been particularly good at “choosing” happiness or “finding” joy. To me, that takes the wonder out of it, as if happiness and joy hide themselves away from us and we need some map to uncover them. As if finding moments of peace is only ever the result of working for it. Nor have I ever been good at choosing the theme of a particular WIP ahead of time. I write what, to paraphrase Richard Bach, barges through the door, grabs me by the shoulders, and urges, “Write me!” I figure out the theme later.

All of this makes me wonder: is it possible to find joy for the market when agents and editors clamor for it?

Maybe I’m a pessimist (I’ve been called worse), or maybe I’m more of a realist. Either way, I think we need to ignore this request. It’s not that agents, editors, and booksellers are wrong. Of course we need more joy and happiness. The past two years have wrought havoc with people’s lives and careers. People want an escape, if only for the length of that book they read for thirty minutes at the end of a day spent overseeing remote education for their kids, interminable Zoom meetings for work, and scrounging the pantry to prepare one more meal before braving the grocery store yet again. Personally, I can’t handle the idea of reading yet another Holocaust novel, no matter how fabulous the writing or how different the storyline (apologies to a dear friend currently shopping her WWII manuscript—it’s fabulous).

If I agree that we need more moments of respite, then I should jump at the chance to provide the gatekeepers what they are looking for, right? Well, no. It’s the age-old publishing dilemma: write for the market or write what your characters tell you to? Trying to write for the market is a losing battle. A year ago, vampires were as dead as Count Orlok with a stake through his heart. This year?

 Who can keep up with such rapidly shifting market trends? Don’t try.

Even if you happen to be one of those writers who can churn out a draft of a novel in a month and revise the next (and I both worship and hate you for that), why would you want to? What joy is there in creating something simply because the market for it is hot?

This is why I say “choosing” happiness and “finding” joy aren’t the path to achieving them. Instead, when you create something that feeds your soul as you write, a story that will speak to readers in a way no prescriptive theme from an agent ever could, the joy finds you. The happiness envelops you.

So I’m not hunting for anything. Happiness and joy will land on me as soon as I sit down to write.  

Jay Whistler lets joy find her while she practices yoga, meditates, and walks her daughter’s rescue dog. She is available to edit picture books, as well as MG, YA, and adult novels. Check out her profile here.