I worked with a man in television who wrote a novel and I sent him to my "prestigious" agent. She loved the book and sent it everywhere. It was off-genre. It was sort of a mystery, it was sort of not. So it was never published. Congratulations tradpub, because you couldn't pigeonhole something you dropped it. Why speculate about the thousands of times that happened in the last 50 years. We know it did and still does. They're just not very clever about bringing out books that are different and difficult.
Every once in a while something gets through that is bright and creative and it becomes a success then it makes it look like tradpub is doing a great job finding that new talent they're always yammering about.
Now we're in the digital age. In the same way...I'm trying to think of something that's not disgusting but I can't...people who are interested in something bizarre can find their group of like-minded individuals on the net when it was impossible before, so will readers who don't want to follow the beaten path find writers doing something else.
Be brave. Experiment. Give the audience the best work you can do. They may not turn up like the millions are turning up for 50 Shades of Greysville, but you can create a community.
I can see an audience coalescing around my books. Very few but they are excited.
It will happen. Try to create a community. Be loyal to them and they will be loyal to you.
PS. And always choose Nikon ;-) They make the best glass in the world. (You think their business is cameras? No, it's technical optical equipment. Cameras are the other thing they do.)
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