Christians, Spec-Fic, and the Amish Issue

A good friend of mine sent me this link the other day, about why there isn't more Christian Speculative Fiction on the market, and why the Amish seem to be taking over the world.

Well, Christian bookstores, at least.

I thought it would be fun to blog about.

So let's take a look.

1.) Christian Bookstores don't carry much spec-fic/sci-fi/fantasy.

Sure, we know that the bookstores skew towards a female, and often older, demographic (hence the Precious Moments population). We know that spec-fic readers tend to be male. The two don't meet well. But even if you could get the spec-fic reading men into the bookstores, past the Testamints, and into the bookshelves, you still have a person standing in your way.

The person who buys the store's stock.

We're in a recession. We have been for a while. Though there are sure-bet spec-fic authors like Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker, stores are going to be less likely to pick up books by lesser known authors in a genre that doesn't sell much.

And it's not just Christian bookstores. Mainstreams booksellers such as Barnes & Noble and Wal-Mart are going to buy what they think will sell well in their stores.

2.) "Everyone" is asking for more Spec-fic, though.

Keep in mind that, yes, spec-fic readers are very vocal, but one more thing - they know how to use their computers (this is not necessarily true of Amish Fiction readers. Just sayin'). Mike Duran's inside source (and if my hunch regarding the identity of that source is right, is a solid person to listen to) made the point that if Spec-fic really truly sold like gangbusters, publishers and book store buyers would sit up and pay attention. Really. But they're not. So my guess is that "everyone" isn't as many people as you'd think.

3.) Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker are the big fish in the spec-fic world.

True. BUT there are tons of other writers out there. Bill Myers is one of them; he'll also be keynoting this summer at the Oregon Christian Writers Conference in Canby. Jill Williamson's By Darkness Hid was not only Marcher Lord Press's biggest seller, but won the 2010 Christy Award in their Visionary category. Randy Ingermanson has several books out, Eric Wilson did a Vampire trilogy with Thomas Nelson Publishers, Stephen Lawhead released several fantasy books. The books are out there. You might have to order them, but they are in existence.

That said...

I have to be honest here. My husband has read a lot of spec-fic of the Michael Crighton, James Rollins, Matthew Reilly, Clive Cussler type. (By the way, how much should Clive Cussler be on Dancing With the Stars? Tons, that's how much. He can drive to the lot in his pink car. Sorry. Tangent.) He's also read some of the Christian releases.

And honestly? He usually likes the general market ones better.

There have been some exceptions, but he prefers the plotting in the general market releases. And rather than ignore the elephant in the room, I'm going to go out on a limb here, and accept that I may receive angry letters - there is some really, really good Christian Fiction out there, of many genres. But some of it is not so great. Just because a book is written from a Christian world-view doesn't mean that it's a worthy piece of art or entertainment. I'm sorry. it doesn't.

So. There you have it. I'm not pointing fingers or naming names, I'm just putting it out there.

4.) Historical Romance and Amish are what's selling.

The economy is bad. CBA readers, by and large, are looking for love stories, and they want them in long skirts. Gloves optional. Why Amish? Because it's safe. Because it's cozy. Because their world is simplified. Because our world isn't. Our world is scary and war-ridden and filled with gray areas that are difficult to wade through.

Also,the rest of us look impossibly hip next to the Amish. There are loads of reasons. I did find out recently that the Amish boom is plateauing, at least. Most publishing houses have filled their Amish Writer Quotas, and in an industry where platform is the new black, that means that either you're already in, or you get to do something else. A new sub-genre will get its turn in the spotlight shortly. In the past we've seen Chick-Lit, suspense, and Prairie Fiction do really well. We'll see what comes next.

5.) The popularity of Amish Fiction represents a Christian world-view shift.

This is an interesting idea. In this blog, Mike Duran posits (sorry, watching lots of Fringe these days) that Christians are veering away from material that contains elements of the supernatural, that they avoid the mysterious. Duran argues that the Bible, what with the fish taxi and the speaking snake (oh, and the speaking mule), and the angels and the prince of the air and the curses and the locusts and the food appearing on the ground and the visions and the prophecies food multiplying and the dead being raised (reanimation? Sorry, like I said, watching Fringe) and the RESURRECTION, scripture alone includes a lot of weird. We won't even talk about end-times prophecy.

My theory on the subject is that Christians, by and large, like their spiritually-oriented paranormal material to be served straight-up. By that, I mean they want it to stay within the covers of their Bible. Because outside of that, you've got a lot of tricky theological decisions about what kinds of weird are okay, and which are twisting spiritual truths incorrectly and not okay, or downright occultic.

It's true, though, that many believers like to skip over the weirder passages of Scripture. Other believers prefer to believe a lot of the stranger bits are literary devices. We live is a post-modern world that clings to science and reason and avoids or negates the inexplicable. To think that post-modernism hasn't crept into the church is unrealistic.

Now, to say that non-paranormal stories are bland and avoid mystery is unfair. To quote Proverbs 30:18-19, "There are three things that are too amazing for me, four that I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a snake on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the way of a man with a maiden." Life is mysterious. Romance is mysterious.

There's a lot of thoughts there, not necessarily a lot of conclusions.

What do you think?

An Amish Epiphany

Okay. Spot the bad hair day. What? You can't??

Got my hair cut today. I have the cut that most of our mothers had when they got married. (This was not intentional). The spirit of Farrah is alive and well. (No offense to our mothers, who should remember they don't have that haircut anymore either).

So I'm going back tomorrow morning (willingly, at 8:45, and for anyone who knows me, the 8:45 part is impressive). And I'm working on my book. My book about the Amish. And I got to thinking, Amish women have a leg up on us.

They don't have bad haircuts. None of them. Granted, this is because they don't cut their hair, but it's possible they're on to something.

Can you tell the book is slow going? I feel perpetually stuck, although my husband's suggestion of a snowstorm lifted my spirits.

And when my hair is cut again tomorrow, my spirits will be further lifted. Possibly because they're not weighed down by the perfect feathered flip.

New thoughts on Amish Fiction

So. After enjoying several posts on the completely terrific Stuff White Christians Like blog, I started thinking.

There are some who find the content on the SWCL blog offensive. I'm sad for them; they have no sense of humor (ironically, they probably like Adam Sandler). Nobody likes white Christians. We are not hip. We are not politically correct. No one wants to see a white Christian on TV, at least not a white out-of-the-closet Christian, talking about Christian things.

All we have left is to make fun of ourselves. Not like it's hard.

Well, let's think of something else White Christians like - Amish Fiction. And see, I used to think it was about security, about knowing nothing truly awful was going to happen in an Amish book, about the soothing setting of the Amish kitchen.

Now I think it's all about white Christian un-hipness. Because when you look at it, Amish people are less hip than white Christians. I mean, they don't get to drive American-made cars. They don't even have an opportunity to argue about whether to call the sanctuary a sanctuary or a fellowhsip hall, because most Amish attend church in each other's homes.

White Christians love Amish fiction because it makes them feel hip by comparison.

Just Can't Stop Blogging

Things are continuously changing on AmishReader.com. Now authors have a feature where we can keep a cute little blog on the site. The blog has different content than this one, a little more geared toward the Reader of Amish Fiction (rather than the Amish Reader, who presumably wouldn't have a computer). It's a bit more PR (read: no demotivator posters).

If you'd like to check it out, it's here. I did post some info on the book that is unavailable anywhere else, and will be following up with answers to some of the questions I get asked a lot.

I'm ALMOST done with the book. Very close. Like, one chapter. Need to be done soon, because I've decided that I want to make striped throw pillows for my couch, and possily a new lampshade, and play the piano, and try an Italian chicken dish I've been meaning to make for a month...

The "Why?" of Christian media

This is a subject I've been thinking about for a little while, first in regard to Christian music, and second in regard to fiction.

There's a lot of say about Christian film, none of it really any good, so I'm skipping it for the time being. I may change my mind as this blog progresses.

First up - the book is coming along. Not as fast as I'd like - I didn't make two chapters this last week. The one chapter was slow, slow going. Very slow going. Golf tournament slow. Made for TV British historical melodrama slow (do you ever notice how fond the British are of whispering? Whispering women. Can't understand what they're saying, and it happens all the time. Sorry. Back on track...). But the chapter is finished, the next started, all will be well, and I'm still perfectly on target.

Totally lost my train of thought. Christian Media. Christian Music. I was thinking about Christian music last night while we were doing the dishes and making pizza (note to single women: marry the pizza man). Danny put on Michelle Tumes, and I found myself enjoying it. This is a bit unusual, since I really don't listen to Christian music anymore. The last few years, I've found it all somewhere between homogenous and weird. The last Christian CD I purchased was Todd Agnew's last release. I love songs from his first and second album, but the third had an identity crisis and was too weird (with the exception of the duet w/ RSJ) to listen to in my car with the windows rolled down. The artists I like best are all crossovers - Leigh Nash, Anberlin, and Lifehouse.

The growing trend I've seen in CCM is a gravitation toward very worship-driven music. And there's a place for that. I just can't listen to it all the time.

Maybe it's because I don't live in the Bible Belt.

My guess is that the worship-oriented stuff sells because people can't get it anywhere else. If they want something relaxing, they buy Enya; Country, Rascal Flats; Pop, Kelly Clarkson. Worship? Then they turn to CCM.

That's just my thought, and it may not be true. But it feels true, because if you look at what CCM put out around ten years ago, it's astounding. Early Nichole Nordman, Bleach, Caedmon's Call 40 Acres, The Normals, Rebecca St. James, Michelle Tumes, Early Kutless (before most of the band bailed), and...*sigh*...remember when the Newsboys stood up to the microphone? The Jars' original album, the first W's release? There were a lot of different sounds going on.

Now everything sounds like it's being mixed by the same band of music producers, and Christian music has become much more formulaic. And Christian rock? Rock & Roll (as Jack Black taught us in School of Rock) is about sticking it to the Man. Most Christians don't believe in sticking it to the man, and efforts to stick it to the prince of darkness haven't been terribly successful.

(Unless it's Demon Hunter, as my brother pointed out, especially with their 2007 release Storm the Gates of Hell. But that's Demon Hunter, and they're hard core.)

So that was my music theory: people don't buy Christian music unless they have to. Then I started wondering if they do the same with Christian fiction. Because what sells best in Chistian fiction is the really safe stuff. Edgy and applicable isn't selling, not unless it's historical or (here it comes...) Amish. If people want to think and read at the same time, they'll pick up something secular, or worse yet, non-fiction (gasp!).

(I heard you, back there in the corner with the nasally voice, there's The Shack. It know. It's just the one shack, though. There's a whole lot of non-shack drowning it out.)

I blog about Christian media fairly reguarly, because it's a real head-scratcher to me. I am heartened that Red's new release is second on Billboard's Christian charts, but then again we've got the fact that Christian media is a segregated art form, placed far away from secular fiction shelves and certain away from its musical genre counterparts.

Don't know what to do about this, because all of it's run by businesses who want to stay in business. Darn them. They want to produce things that will sell. And that's tough in a rocky economy.

Pray that the economy turns around. Economy turns around, recording labels and publishing houses get to a point when they can afford to take the occasional risk. I miss risks. They can be fun to listen to.

May the Amish be with you.

So. I posted earlier today saying how I didn't post much.

Right.

To promote their line of Amish Fiction, Harvest House created AmishReader.com, a site dedicated to...yes...Amish Fiction. Being read by Amish Readers.

(Sorry, I'm a bit punchy. That's what comes of spending too much of your day in one chair and only cranking out 406 words. Urg. There will be more by the time I shut the laptop lid for the night, and judging by the current loopiness [sp?] they might not be half bad.)

Anyway. Check out the site. I'm on it. I look cute. My books aren't exactly on, seeing as they don't have covers yet, but they will be. If you like Amish fiction, take a look. If your mommy likes Amish fiction, tell her to take a look.

In all honesty, I am not going to make a career in writing Amish Fiction. This is not to say that I haven't spent ages in serious research, visited an Amish General Store and woodshop, bought the peach butter, photographed the Amish kittens, nearly cried when I realized I didn't have the memory card in my camera at the time...correctly photographed the buggy crossing sign. Been there, done that. Also watched the documentary about the Amish crack dealer kid.

I've enjoyed the chance to put my research skills (which I pay for every month in the form of a student loan) to good use, but my imagination is restless. Before publication, I tried my hand at writing historical fiction, suspense, YA fiction, children's stories, and chick-lit, before I settled into comedic-generation-next-fiction.

Writing Amish Fiction was my "in," and it's worked because of my imagination (granted, there are days I want to yank everyone's bonnets off and trot them around a Sephora counter). But later, who knows? Writing to the market is a challenge, but I like challenges.

I just wish this particular challenge would let me leave the house.

P.S. For more on my take on Amish Fiction, click here.
P.S.S. Forevermore, or at least in the forseeable future, the AmishReader link will also be posted in my "places to click" section. And do keep checking it - at some point, the book will be there!

Into the Tunnel

Wow. February was not a great blogging month. In my defense, things have been crazy. My goal for the book has been completion by the end of March, and edits through the month of April.

It is now March. The writer-guilt is stronger than ever. For the uninitiated, it's the feeling that you should be writing. At all times. Leaving the house is a bad idea, because it means leaving my computer behind, and leaving my computer means I'm not writing. Blogging properly has gone to the wayside, because it's writing something else. I'm not supposed to be writing anything else.

The book is turning me into an incommunicative agoraphobe.

Good news is, I'm healthy. I don't write well when I'm sick. Actually, I don't really write at all. I just sneeze and feel sorry for myself. It's hard being witty when you're congested. After an unhealthy December that put me behind, I'm at least holding steady.

And I'm over the worst of the "middle-of-the-project" syndrome. The end is truly near. I can see it. Taste it.

I've decided to start making a list of the things I'd like to do when the book is all finished and turned-in...

1. Practice the piano without feeling guilty.
2. Read during the day without feeling guilty.
3. Go out on a random photo shoot during the day (should be things to shoot by then) without feeling guilty.
4. Knit during the day without feeling guilty.
5. Acknowledge that Danny's been waiting for that sweater since December and still feel guilty, but better since I'm working on it.
6. Take a bath without feeling guilty.
7. Catch up on correspondence.
8. Make new throw pillows.
9. Iron. Feel guilty for not ironing.
10. Spend time with family and friends.
11. Go to the Art Museum.
12. Go to the Natural Sciences Museum.
13. Try new recipes.
14. Exercise.
15. Watch Mamma Mia! with my sister.
16. Sing along, just to see the look on her face.

It's possible that Mommy guilt and Book guilt are related. In my case, the child is quiet, but it's always there...

Truly looking forward to being done with this project. The next project runs closer to my personal tastes, content-wise. Having the main character (of undecided name) run around Portland, taking design courses and working in a bookshop has a lot of fun potential. Don't get me wrong, I like Plain Jayne. But it's definitely been a challenge. I think I've grown a lot as a writer, been pushed to write outside my preferences and create something likable anyway. For that, I'm pleased. Having a project, any project, going on this long is tough though. Looking forward to getting to that list!

I love you, sensibly

I'm starting to think that I kind of suck at writing romance. This is a problem, because most editors in my genre want a romance storyline.

And I'm fine with that. I understand. Romance sells. I'll get them together in the end. It's just the drama I have trouble with.

Good romance, written, is all about drama. The thing is, though, is that the mark of a good realistic romance is the lack of drama. I mean, when you ask couples how they met, there's not a lot of "well, my dad was a mafia boss - you know how that goes" or "I almost moved to Saint Tropez, but then Fred ran on onto the tarmac and stood in front of the plane to stop me. That's how I knew." And rarer still, "There was this snafu with my inheritance, I had to marry someone within two days, thanks goodness I met Bob! The only problem was, he had an insane wife in the attic at the time..."

Here's what I've experienced with the two books I've worked on in the past, one completed, one nearly complete. I'm great when the two characters are not supposed to be together. Really great. Nice drama, superb tension (tension being the lifeblood of story).

But by the time I've cleared the obstacles (about two-thirds through the book) for these two to really, truly fall in love, what then? They fall in love. Big whoop.

I'm going to solve this, truly. And I have no concerns (no concerns, especially if my agent or editor is reading this) about my ability to craft a lovely little romance. But it's tricky, you know? This is a book about the Amish. Now, if I could only have some Canadian mobsters with a vampire or two while someone (the guy) gets hit by a car on the way to the Empire State Building, things would be a lot easier.

I saw Amish people

See that? In the window? See that Amish head? Total accident. I actually took four shots of this parked buggy, and in the last one I got a little happy surprise. I didn't want to actually try to take a picture of an Amish person because one of the premises of my book is treating Amish people like normal people and not circus freaks, and while the urge to snap is very strong when faced with the strangely bearded, I resisted and, in my opinion, was given a little present for my moral fortitude.

Ha ha. Anyway.

After we purchased our plane tickets for my grandmother's memorial service, I posted something about our trip East on Facebook. My editor then asked if we were headed to Amish country...and it got me to thinking.

Were there Amish in North Carolina?

I knew Grandma wouldn't mind. She would have rolled her eyes and drawled, "Honey, if you need to go see the Amish, go see the Amish." And that would have been that.

Technically, there is only supposed to be one settlement, in Union Grove, but the settlement we visited was in the much-closer town of Hamptonville. Goes to show that the Amish settlment censuses (censi?) aren't wildly accurate. We also saw...


A buggy sign...




...and a traveling buggy with real people in it...

...and Amish kittens.

The last two shots are brough to you by my cousin Melissa, seeing as how I shot a slew of photos without my memory card inside my camera. I have grieved the loss and moved on, although the shot I'm saddest about loosing is the black kitten walking through an Amish-carved spindle-thingy.

Grieved. Moved on.

Anyway, we stopped at the Shiloh General Store, where we ate Amish ice cream (good stuff), bought fudge and Strawberry-Rhubarb butter. The store was run by an Amishman; a young lady served us the ice cream. We chatted with the older gentleman for a little while - once he found out we were from Oregon, he asked if we'd ever been to Sisters. Aparently there's a farming periodical that's published out of Sisters, and it was the only connection he had with Oregon.

He also told us about his son-in-law who ran a woodshop down the street, so we hiked down a bit - that's where we found the kittens.

All in all, a great trip. I didn't work up the nerve to ask anyone any questions, although in hindsight there were several things I could have asked and sounded intelligent about. I mean, it's not like I haven't researched these people for the last several months.

For a change of pace, we went to the fair that evening. We watched pig races (winning piglet gets an oreo), and I got to pet a camel :

Also fed it a carrot round and nearly lost a finger (more user error than camel violence).

We had a wonderful trip. I got to see my grandpa, as well as aunts, uncles, and cousins I don't get to see very often. And we really want to go back, although the next trip will likely involve fewer Amish and more of the BMW factory tour...

The Trouble with Boots

Okay. I promise that I really will, at some point, write about my time in North Carolina and talking to Amish people and maybe even something about writing. But right now I'm still jet-lagged and spacey and feel like I about killed myself putting out 315 words yesterday. Not good.

So, although I can't get myself to sit down and organize the Amish pics I've got, I can riff on shoes for a moment.

Women's boots to be exact.

See, when I got my book advance, we stuck the bulk of it in savings but earmarked a small portion for "mad money." I really wanted a pair of tall boots, but had never been able to quite get myself to spend money on them. This is partly when I was still in my cheap shoe/bulk buying phase, a time when $20 bucks was a lot for a pair of shoes. Beautiful days, effectively ended by my physical therapist who insisted on supportive footwear.

(Actually, she really wanted me in running shoes, but I just couldn't get there. Wearing a beautiful, hand-knit lace sweater with running shoes? Why shouldn't I just wear pleather while I was at it!)

The Born shoes have really worked for me, so I went to the Born website (which features Nordic models with really awesome sweaters and blond dreadlocks) and found a pair of boots. Beautiful boots. Beautiful, really leather boots, with hand-stitching and a not-too-high heal. I called the local nice-shoe store and they ordered them in.

Which took forever. Seriously, I think they put them on the slow boat from Finland. I had dreams about these boots. They didn't fit right, they arrived and they looked completely different...something was wrong. I checked the website again, and they looked the way I remembered. And when I'd returned from North Carolina, the shoes had arrived in the store. I went down, zipped them up and...

They were too large in the calf. Waaaayyy too large. As in, Scandanavian women clearly have calves of unusual size.

Danny bought me the Anniversary Sleeping Beauty DVD, and we listed as Briar Rose opined that "if you dream a thing more than once, it's sure to come true." Well, I dreamed twice that there was something wrong with the boots. Sleeping Beauty totally called it.

I tried a couple other boots at the store. Same problem. Danny explained that night that I have unusually narrow calves for a woman. He knows this because he studied ski boots. But where most women's calves, apparently, curve out, mine stay the course to my knee.

Not to be discouraged, we (my mother/untiring shopping companion) went to the newly opened DSW store this morning. SAME PROBLEM. And if the calf fit, the shoe was incredibly uncomfortable. After DSW, she suggested Miss Meers in Oakway. Long story short, there are two pairs of the same Franco Sarto boots (same boot, different size) winging their way from the Corvallis Miss Meers store for my consideration (cool store, by the way. Great shop, especially if you're a shoe snob).

There's a bit of grieving. I really, really wanted leather boots, but the real-leather ones are the ones most likely to be cut for the women with Amazonian calves (whom I now envy).

Boots come Tuesday. Hopefully I won't dream of them. Will post more later.

Researching those who don't care to be researched

Research for my book is a bit trickier than I anticipated: it's tough researching people who won't speak for themselves. Granted, you can find some collections of Amish people writing about sundry items like baking, quilting and barn-raising, but most of those collections are written for children and avoid the hard-hitting topics.

Do the Amish like being Amish, or do they stay for tradition's sake? Do any of the regret staying? Do they ever envy conventional dishwashers or the concept of salvation by grace?

Add to that the fact that there are 1,400 different ways to be Amish. One group may eschew regular bathing, while others are more fastidious. Finding out what's standard is like finding out what color is most common for cats.

Then you've got your points of view. People who came from an Amish background are either overly rosy or exceptionally bitter. True, I would have some hard feelings about a group that wouldn't let me shave my armpits. Some of the outsiders looking in have the same set of polarized reactions - I think America wants to believe in the possibility of the idealic agrarian society. It's kind of like the fascination with organic farming.

Before I started working on this project, I read anything I could get my hands on regarding the Amish (Note: anything non-fiction. The Quilter's Daughter isn't my idea of a hard source). Now, I'm going back to look for what I may have missed. It's tough writing about a world I've never experienced and likely never will, considering that what the Amish want most is to be left alone.

On top of all the Amish research I've also got a fairly strict writing schedule; some weeks are better than others. And I never really unpacked from the writers' conference, and my cold combined with my subsequent birthday weekend hasn't done a whole lot for the tidiness of my home. It's funny writing about the Amish, who will shame you with their cleanliness and work ethic, while sitting surrounded by piles of stuff.

However, I do have a load of laundry going.

Some things I have learned about the Amish:

1. They love ice cream. As in, love ice cream the way my husband loves ice cream - by the pint.

2. The children and teens will play volleyball. Violently. Kind of funny if you consider they're pacifists.

3. Amish couples honeymoon at the bride's parents' home until their home is completed. Often, they'll spend the weekends traveling to family member's homes and receiving gifts.

4. The Amish collect no social security, but they do pay taxes.

5. Many Amish are prefer chiropractors to doctors, and will travel great distances to see them. There's a joke that you can get an Amishman to the moon by telling him there's a chiropractor there.

6. Most Amish do use electricity through generators, solar panels, and wind power. Because of this, even the most conservative group (the Schwartzentrubers) use washing machines.

7. The only musical instrument allowed is the harmonica. All church singing is a cappella.

So many other things, but I'm done procrastinating. Will keep posting about progress...

A Little Less Conversation, a Little More Amish Please

It’s day one at the Oregon Christian Writers’ conference, and we’re already worn out. I say “we,” because Danny’s here running around, running sound and pretty much anything with wires. It's great fun because we're equally tired, and equally loopy.

I love the conferences because it's like summer camp for writers. Most of us are slightly odd ducks, so you get a group of us together making bad writing-related puns and exchanging rejection stories.

There is much conversation over what editors are looking for. Most of us want to know what those elusive editors are looking for, even though I think, subconsciously, we just want them to be looking for us. We don't want to conform to what they're looking for.

The big topic this year is over the Amish: everyone wants Amish. Those of us who write contemporary fiction lament over the fact that what we write just isn't selling. It's hard to remember sometimes that even Christian publishing is a business. Publishers want to acquire books that will sell. Nobody wants unsold books to be recycled into toilet paper. Nobody wants to be responsible for producing a book that will run a deficit.

The publishing industry is not unlike Hollywood; if they find something that sells, they'll make a lot of us. And while that may irritate the creative at heart, we do have to realize it's good business practice.

The question creatives have to ask themselves is, "how creative am I?" Are we creative enough to write salable books? Are we capable of crafting stories that follow the trends, in order to avoid a toilet paper future?

Will the Amish trend blow over? You bet your buggy. Will it blow over before new Amish acquisitions are released? Yeah, probably. Which is why it's important to write stories that supercede trend. Stories that may involve quilting and buggies but also tell a solid story in an unexpected way.

I know for me, Plain Jane will not be the only book I write. There will be more. And it won't be all Amish all the time. Next year, there will be a new "Amish."

Aliens, probably. But we'll see.