Does setting matter?

[Serena]

A thread on another group raised this question for me, authors.
I'm American and I love stories set in England, but a publisher told me that they saw limited appeal in my book set in Germany, Don't know if this was specifically directed at Germany or is it true for anything outside the US for the American market.

Anyone have any feedback?

[S.W.]

Serena, I'm no expert here, and I'm not American, but will offer my thoughts.
America is a huge market and I know that it is often required that non-American movies need to be Americanised (not sure that's a real word but you get my drift). I'm assuming the same thought process is used for books.

So, it's my impression that the powers that decide on what will work in America must feel that anything that isn't specifically American based would not be as accepted by Americans. My thoughts on this is that I don't believe they give the American public enough credit to be able to digest non-American content. I think that American readers are more open minded than publishers may think. After all, it's no newsflash that there are other countries in the world besides America (again, this is only my opinion). Just look at Harry Potter, that's definately not set in America.

Over the years I've seen many tv shows and movies that have been adapted from non-American originals to be Amercanised, only to fail. They can lose to original magic that made them so good. Just to give you an idea of how American culture/movies impacts other parts of the world. When my kids are role playing in a game, they use American accents, because the bulk of movies/tv that they have grown up with is from America.

When writing, I know that I need to ensure that my books have American spelling rather than what I have grown up with. It's something that can be tricky to spot. Imagine you had to forget all that you had learned and start spelling things a different way :)
Sorry, if I've gone off topic here.

My personal choice for setting is, whatever works for the story. I read to go to other places, so if the setting is different to my everyday world, then I think it makes it more enjoyable.

[Serena]

S.W. wrote: "Serena, I'm no expert here, and I'm not American, but will offer my thoughts.
America is a huge market and I know that it is often required that non-American movies need to be Americanised (not su..."

Thanks for your thoughts. I remain hopeful that others feel as you do - open to reading a good story, wherever it may take you.