Most writers, if they’re honest, want to be liked. It’s a deeply human instinct. It feels like safety. And many writers hope every critique partner, every agent, and every editor will fall in love with their book.
But that instinct, however natural, can actually work against you.
Universal Likability Is a Warning Sign, Not a Goal
The logic here is counterintuitive at first. You’d think that, if everyone *kind of* likes your book, that’s great. Foolproof. You’ll be the one writer in history who never receives a form rejection. But it’s actually the opposite: if everyone likes your book, that usually means it doesn’t have a strong point of view. A manuscript engineered to avoid offending, alienating, or losing anyone tends to polish away exactly the qualities that make a story memorable. You end up with a book people find perfectly fine–and “perfectly fine” is not what gets an editor to stay up late reading–or risk their career taking on.
What You Actually Want Instead
I’s not that some readers loving your book and others hating it is a badge of honor by itself. (That said, think of all of the super famous authors who’ve wallpapered with rejections–all great books get rejected.) It’s that a book with a real, specific point of view will naturally resonate differently with readers. Some may be confused, some may disagree, some may decide it’s too literary or commercial or the world is too scary. They are not your audience..
As agent Jessica Sinsheimer (Context Literary) said on the panel: “No one’s going to risk their career on something they kind of like.” Agents aren’t looking for manuscripts that are broadly, mildly appealing to everyone. They’re looking for the ones they can’t stop thinking about. Because if they can’t stop thinking about them, they’ll likely stay with fellow editors, booksellers, and readers too. They want to love it so much that they’re happy to argue for the work in acquisitions meetings, and risk their career (if it loses money, they may get fired) on its success. That kind of conviction doesn’t come from a book that’s inoffensive to everyone. It comes from a book that’s singular and clear in its point of view.
Finding Your Passionate Readers, Not Your Universal Ones
Stop asking yourself “Will people like this?” A more useful question might be: “Will the right people love this?” Those aren’t the same thing, and chasing the first one can actively cost you the second.
If a beta reader says your book is “fine,” that’s not necessarily a compliment. If a beta reader says your book made them throw the pages across the room or made them cry on the subway message you at 1 a.m. demanding the sequel/answer to the cliffhanger–that’s the reaction that turns into an agent offer, a book deal, and eventually a reader who buys everything you write next.
The Takeaway
Writing toward universal approval is, paradoxically, one of the easiest ways manuscripts edit themselves into being forgettable. A strong point of view will cost you some readers. It’s supposed to. The ones it keeps are the ones who were always going to be your actual audience.
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