[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Ah. So all of those sci-fi writers should stop writing sci-fi and start writing celebrity tell-alls, because they make more money?

If their reason for writing is "lots of money now followed by long-term trickle of income from royalties etc," then yes. Celebrity tell-alls are more profitable, as a genre, than science fiction.

I tend to assume most sci-fi authors write that genre because they love telling those stories. They'd love to get paid for it, which is why they put in the extra effort to edit and complete the stories, and whatever business hassles are involved in getting it to the public--but if their top priority is "sustainable career with long-term benefits," there are much better options.

If they're not versatile enough writers to work in another field, they're probably not skilled enough writers to make a living at sci-fi, either. Which doesn't mean they're instantly talented enough to write thrillers or romance or paranormal YA novels instead--but if they don't have the skills to research the tropes of those genres and write for them, they don't have the skills to write consistently in their genre-of-choice, either.

They may not *want* to write in those genres. But then we're back to, "are you trying to have a successful career, or trying to tell the stories you want to share?" They're not incompatible goals, but each writer has to sort out which one's more important.

Don't forget, writers specialize because they tend to excel in certain genres more than others. Though I wish I was the sort of writer who could write in any genre, I'm not.

Pretty much nobody can write in "any" genre. But "science fiction" is a genre that includes several types of writing--a story can be a mystery, or a psychological drama, or an adventure tale, or a romance, or some combination thereof.

Character vs character.
Character vs nature.
Character vs self.
Character vs supernatural.
Character vs society.
Character vs destiny.

An excellent writer may only be able to write one or two of those -- but if that writer can't put a story in a variety of settings, or focus on a variety of character interactions, that's lack of skill and training, rather than lack of innate talent and style.

I write in the genre I am best at, and will therefore make the most money. If I can't make money writing SF, or some other science or technology subject, I might as well just stop writing... because my celebrity tell-alls will most certainly suck.

I don't mean that a good writer should be able to write in *any* genre, and certainly not equally well or profitably. But science fiction isn't the only genre with a scientific focus... plenty of medical thrillers focus on the science, adventure novels can rely on technology as a crucial plot element, and mysteries, of course, can be solved with exotic equipment or skills not available to the general public.

If you're saying "I can't write a decent story unless it involves settings and technology that don't actually exist," that's declaring that you lack some essential authorial skills. Saying, "I don't want to write such a story" is a different matter--and it says your priorities are about the stories you want to tell rather than the stories that would make the most money.