Wednesday, July 23, 2008

I really do want to write about superheroes

The thing is, I wrote about superheroes before, and it flopped. Badly. It was going to be a whole series (for the three or four of you who bought it, that's why the whole supervillain thing was never resolved) but after the first book failed so badly, no more were commissioned. That's the thing with series. The first one has really got to succeed.

Perhaps it was because Naked Eyes was an erotic romance, and supers don't do so well in the erotosphere? (new word, like it?) I was thinking of a new book more along the Sophie lines--non-erotic (although there may well be some sexx0ring) one central character, a couple of love interests, sequels, save the world, diet-to-fit-into-supersuit, etc.

Or maybe it's that superheroes do well in comic books, and on the big screen, but not in books.

Or maybe it just sucked.

Thoughts? Reactions?


4 comments:

  1. I quite like Vicki Pettersson's (Petterssen's?) sense series which begins with The Scent of Shadows.

    It's marketed like Urban Fantasy, but it has a strong superhero vibe. Within the story the characters have comic books written about them.

    There's also another series which I'm going blank on. It began with Karma Girl I think. This really is more superhero territory and there are three books in this series now.

    So I think there is a market out there.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think superheroes are going strong at the moment. There seems to be another comic-related film out every week and people love them. And there are plenty of superhero books too (although I have to disagree with Lesley about Vicki Petterson's series - waaaay too slow and angsty).

    I say go for it. I'm toying with a YA superhero project at the moment, amongst a zillion other things. I think the success of urban fantasy has really opened up the possibilities for superhero antics.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I will go read Naked Eyes...and let you know. I love superhero stories, the challenge, just like with me writing goddess stories, is giving them some weaknesses. But, I haven't read Naked Eyes, so I can't comment.

    I'll go fix that this week!
    ~S

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'll take a look at those Petterson books, and try and see who Karma Girl is by.

    One of the things I try to ignore as a writer is trends--band-wagon-jumpage rarely leads to a good book. But sitting down to write something you just know won't sell might just be a waste of time!

    ReplyDelete