Rocky Mountain Fiction W... Market Share Analysis for January 2026

Nobody wants cool books. Thought-provoking—yes. Genre-bending—bring it. Heartfelt—always. Virtuosic examples of form and craft all, filled with compelling characters and well-realized settings. But cool? Forget about it. This thought comes at the collision of two lengthy social experiments I’m on. The first experiment is querying. Researching agents. Personalizing letters for them. And repeatedly stewing on the vague resignation and disappointment I feel at the point when I decide to push the punk rock/metalhead vibes of my story to the side and vibe up the literary cunning and virtuosity instead. For at no-wise do I see punk-rock spirit energizing the output of literary agents. After getting to know a few agents, I know the spirit is there in some of them. A lot of them, I suspect. They leave that amiss in their manuscript wishlists, though, or all their notes about the MFAs and whether they’re cat people and which season they like best. The punks and metalheads hide themselves behind book nerd masks. Which is understandable, and as it should be. I get it. I’ve written web copy before. Turning up is a struggle. I sympathize with the line they’re walking. The main feature of who they want to attract is book nerd. Even now, punk rockers and metalheads have a stereotype of being antithetical to the sort of intellectualism associated with literacy. So it makes sense. It also informs the other experiment I’m running: asking people about their projects. I’ve changed the question I ask. I don’t like to ask people what their story’s about anymore, because we often freeze in the face of that question, because too many thoughts offer themselves at once. Instead, I’ve started asking, “What’s cool about your project?” See? Feels much more open. Gets more at what they like about it, I feel like, and what they like about it will be what everyone likes about it. The results have been a bit better. I learn more about what’s engaging in my friends’