Just a glance in the average bookstore can give you the unnerving sense of walking into a hall of mirrors. The book that filled the shelves several months ago, and still does, appears to have spawned a hundred lookalikes. There are no longer just Fifty Shades of Grey, but fifty different authors printing their own erotic romances along the same theme.

This phenomenon is not a rare one. Only a couple of years ago we saw paranormal romances storming off the press in their hundreds, covers resplendent with angst-ridden teens and apples of temptation, and the contents no different.

Trends to follow don’t just crop up in the section of popular fiction. For instance, the 2012 Booker Shortlist sparked little controversy. As per usual, it contained intricate novels, character driven rather than plot driven and, though not always, following serious themes rather than comical ones. The winner this year, Hilary Mantel, even succeeded a second time with the second book in her bloody historical series. Some of you may recall that her first novel Wolf Hall won in 2009. Writers aiming for literary recognition know which kind of niche to settle into. The desire for prestige may often dissuade an aspiring author who is good at writing, for example, Young Adult fantasy and lead them to try and squeeze out a Booker candidate in ink.

Literary bandwagons to jump on are rolling everywhere. But, if you’re an aspiring author, should you be running after and jumping on?

In all likelihood, the answer is no. Unless your Fifty Shades doppelganger is already sitting waiting in the drawer of your desk or a secret folder on your computer, by the time you catch up to the bandwagon it will have ground to a halt. Your audience will have moved onto something more original. Publishing a novel often takes up to a year even after you’ve found an agent. Writing one well often takes longer. It might help get your toes in the door of becoming an established author, but probably not a whole foot: if your work is rushed it will be difficult to re-establish a persona as a dedicated writer.

The well established and long lasting audience for literary fiction is perhaps more discerning, or unwelcoming than the commercial market, but will wait for your masterpiece. Then again, the slush pile is always hungry for prose that sounds too much like everything else.

This begs the question of how to write something that is fresh but still appealing. Of course, there isn’t much of a market for a tale about a boiled egg in space. As Angry Robot’s editor Lee Harris said, ‘the trick is to be original, but not too original’.

So, firstly, write what you love. Every editor or agent at every writing festival will tell you that if it bores you, it will bore everyone else. If you love to write about dragons but think this will never win acclaim from the critical elite, not only are you not necessarily correct, but a novel that you’re wringing from the dredges of ‘great literature’ will serve you no better if it doesn’t interest you. Not every novel is the new Harry Potter or Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but if you don’t love your own work you can’t expect your readers to.

Second, know your market. This is different from writing to the market. Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies will primarily interest those who love historical fiction. Those interested in war may be the first to pick up Will Self’s Umbrella. These niches aren’t the be all and end all of the novel, but if you’re writing for a children’s audience, a swearword on every page of the novel may not delight the first agent you pitch it to.

Third, write well. Obvious point, perhaps. However, the number of editors who complain about books churned off the page and packed off into a proposal without a second glance is impossible to count. Try not to mimic other writers, and check that grammar. An agent spotting three mistakes in the first three chapters will, in all likelihood, stop reading.

Next time you get the urge to write only what you think the shelves are printing, be careful you don’t miss that wagon in the blind leap and hit the dust of your literary predecessors. Yes, there will always be exciting new trends and there will always be those who turn a blind eye to a work of fiction that isn’t obvious material for the intellectually over-discerning. But be fresh, and if you like to write about eggs in space, perhaps you’ll create a brand new market.