In a long entry about the publishing industry, Grumpy Old Bookman Michael Allen sums it all up perfectly:

For the writer who takes the trouble to study the facts (and there's no excuse nowadays, because the internet is bursting with data), the position is quite unambiguous. It is futile to imagine that you are going to be able to make a career out of writing fiction which is 'personal', 'literary', 'fine art' or describable by any other term which means doing your own thing the way you want to do it. If you want to write and be published by the firms which have the power to generate any more than small change for you, you have to do things their way. And good luck to you. It probably isn't any more painful than working for an advertising agency or TV. Approached in the right way, it might even be fun.

If you want to please yourself, follow your own instincts, and write whatever inspires you, feel free. And when you've finished the book, there are lots of small presses and thousands of other ways to seek readers for it.

Yesterday, Barbara Peters, our editor at Poisoned Pen Press, told us she loved the outline for Seven For A Secret. So we will now proceed to follow our own instincts and write what inspires us.