I can appreciate your experience with copy writing, as my paying work gives me a degree of creative freedom but—even worse than writing to what people want—I’m writing to what some computer geek who works out of his basement wants to optimize SEO. I have this hideous list of rules to follow in every post that I know makes the keywords glaringly obvious, but, hey, it’s for the money…and I can still work around the SEO bits to infuse some soul at the end of the day.

You had BETTER be immensely proud of your work!!! I am still lamenting that I can’t read German because of it. The first chapter itself (or at least the draft of it – perhaps the final is different) was so gripping and cleverly described. That, at least, seemed accessible to a wide audience, so I hope you stay true to your writer’s voice and instinct. That said, I know what you mean about going into with grand ideas of what you want to achieve. I totally did that with ms1, and when I later stepped back to look at what I’d actually produced, I realized I’d been perhaps a little too ambitious for what it was meant to be. It ultimately deals with a rather mind-bending concept, and that definitely needed to be simplified for understanding and balanced out with my areas of lightness and irreverence that did lend a more commercial quality. In short, that damn thing was undergoing an identity crisis between silly and sophisticated, so I hope I’ve gotten it to fall somewhere in the middle…but whatever. I’ve chosen to not look at it for a while longer so that when I do I’ll have fresher eyes and hopefully less sentiment to slash what needs to be.

It really is to each his/her own, as you essentially said. Write to the market if you want it to sell; don’t whinge if you wrote for yourself and others aren’t feelin’ it. Fair enough.