During the summers of my college life, I worked on an assembly line. One of those days, I worked alongside someone who was telling me about his wife who was a writer with three books published to date.
I was obviously interested and intrigued, then headed out to grab a copy of her latest work. A supernatural foray of women and witches—Dime Store Magic by Kelley Armstrong.
It was neat. I definitely wasn’t into the whole supernatural genre, but could appreciate the fun the book brought.
He later remarked that while she received mostly positive reviews for her work, one critic tore into her claiming she’s got too much talent to be writing in such a dead-end genre. It was a waste of her time.
A year later, Twilight came out.
It wasn’t long before publishers were begging for more supernatural works. By this point, Armstrong had already established herself in that space and her career skyrocketed.
When I first started blogging under my own name, it was a crowded place and the advice was all over the place for how to get discovered:
Write daily
Don’t write daily
Write long posts
Write short posts
Add an image
Write a compelling headline
Guest post everywhere
etc.
Whenever a new trend popped up, you suddenly saw the entire blogosphere adapt and chase what was new. Then blogging “died” and was “replaced” with micro-blogging, social media posting, video, immersive websites, etc.
At some point, I got sick of following all the hype and decided to just keep writing on a simple site that put readability above anything else. Right now, there’s a ton of people moving towards simple text-focused sites to show their writing.
All those other bloggers who were chasing trends… or even giving the advice?
Gone.
Amateur investors right now are chasing all the trends (“Gamestop!” “Bitcoin!” “Dogecoin!”), then wondering why they keep losing all their money.
When you see a trend, it’s already too late to ride the wave.
You’re better off creating your own trend, or sticking to what you love until it becomes a trend again… and then riding the wave that comes with it.