Here's my answer to Darcy's excellent question. And I ponder it yearly and daily. I think it's less like me giving people what they want, and more like us having a conversation. If I only write what I want, it's like throwing darts at a dartboard with my eyes closed. That can be satisfying, but only if it's the throwing that gets you off. For me, throwing is fun, but making contact is more satisfying. Giving people what they "want" for me would be like walking the dart over to the dartboard and pushing it in. Who cares about that? Connecting without going through the process. No risk, no real contribution. I think getting published is like getting hired. You can have a bull's-eye resume and no one will look at it at all. On the other hand, if you know someone in the community in which you want to work, you can get the job ahead of people who are more qualified than you. Same with books. Write a great book, and then try and interest someone in it. Hard, hard, hard. That's why many novels get published that aren't the best books. The author of the cheap romance novel understood the community, became part of it by making inroads into that world, was able to make genuine contact with an agent or a publisher because they both had the same goal. I'm not going to try to write substandard books. Rather, I want to write the best book I can while ALSO giving something to an audience. For years I only wrote "what I wanted" and almost NOBODY listened. Not friends, nor family, nor fans. If they did, they had very little to say back to me. I got almost no feedback, or I got feedback about my "talent" instead of the work. Because of these results, I had to question what I was doing. Who was I writing for, and why? What was different about what I was doing and what Bruce Springsteen was doing? Or James Joyce? He's obscure as obscure gets, but he somehow reached people. Why? These questions are essential, even if the answer doesn't change what you're doing.