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My first book (Somewhere Night Falls - Neil Stanners) was a collection of short stories about childhood and growing up, all set in Australia. I recently updated it and it is now available as a new paperback. It has received some 'nice' commentary and one 5 star review but it never sold much. I have always been intrigued as to whether the problem was that it was just never noticed or that the content was 'foreign' to US readers. Having visited the US my personal opinion is that we have very similar lifestyles, likes and dislikes but maybe US readers only want to read about local subjects. (Come to think of it, the title story of the book, set in WWII, does involve US troops in Australia.)
I'd be very interested in opinions.

Loftus+ wrote:My first book (Somewhere Night Falls - Neil Stanners) was a collection of short stories about childhood and growing up, all set in Australia. I recently updated it and it is now available as a new paperback. It has received some 'nice' commentary and one 5 star review but it never sold much. I have always been intrigued as to whether the problem was that it was just never noticed or that the content was 'foreign' to US readers. Having visited the US my personal opinion is that we have very similar lifestyles, likes and dislikes but maybe US readers only want to read about local subjects. (Come to think of it, the title story of the book, set in WWII, does involve US troops in Australia.)
I'd be very interested in opinions.

I think you're jumping too quickly to the notion that simply because your book takes place in Australia, that it would be disliked in the US. Maybe the market for growing up stories isn't huge. Maybe there's a giant glut of entertainment in general, which takes away potential readers who'd rather spend their time with something else.

Thanks for your reply Murmur. Fair point about the glut of entertainment options these days. Technology is a wonderful thing. Unfortunately it tends to give us too much of everything.
I'm secretly hoping that a few (or a few hundred) readers would take a look at this book and tell me if they notice any difference. Or could the settings just as easily be in the US? The stories range from the 1940's to the present day.

I'm new to this site. I live in the UK and this is a topic that has interested me for a while. I think there is a perception that people who live in different countries but speak "English" have similar cultural understanding. I'm not sure this is true; the touchstones of common reference and idiom make each culture distinct. It may be that the job of the writer is to find a way to overcome those awkward disconnections but the problem is that, in so doing, the richness of each culture is diluted.