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I can 100% relate to that because I'm in a similar position.
If you want to launch it under a pen name without using your current audience it'll be very hard.
As far as I remember, you wanted to write a mystery or a thriller. Both of these are extremely competitive. Also, right now, Amazon is promoting Dean Koontz so heavily (he's published by Amazon Publishing) that he dominates many of the bestselling lists in these genres.
At the same time, if you don't try, you won't know, though it would most certainly suck to spend a few years writing a book only to sell 20 copies regardless if you're doing it for the money or not. Just feels wasteful and from my perspective, it would be more valuable for the world to write another non-fiction book guaranteed to be enjoyed by thousands.
I'd say there are roughly four "types" of fiction writing:
- big niches where most people write for money and competition is incredibly tough - romance, erotica, thrillers, suspense, mysteries. Of course, if your book becomes a success, it'll be a huge financial success because of the sheer scale.
- medium, less lucrative niches where some people write as a passion and some as a business - sci-fi, fantasy, horror. The problem here is that many of these niches require writing long series to succeed because standalone books don't work well. Market is relatively small compared to these big niches (hence also the need for series). Lastly, extensive world-building (for fantasy and sci-fi) and research (primarily for sci-fi) can take a LOT of time.
- obscure underground niches, some of which can turn into trendy niches - these are subgenres of the above genres that appeal to few people. For example, stuff like Christian post-apocalyptic stories, steampunk, alternative history. litRPG used to be something for total nerds, now it's a super hot niche. Anything that's a weird mix of other genres belongs here (including books with LGBTQ+ main characters).
- writing purely for the art of it - literary fiction, poetry, anything else that's way too difficult to read for an average reader to ever become a commercial success.
I considered their novel way too weird to ever reach the goals they set for themselves (as far as I remember, they "only" wanted to sell 10,000 copies). I told them I can't promise any success. They still decided to work with me. I did my best but I think in the end we didn't even sell more than 500 copies. The book got 15 reviews, some very positive, and my client was still happy. The book is maybe selling a copy a month now. I myself would consider it a gigantic waste of time.
Sort of like my last non-fiction book, published under a new pen name, which was by far the most researched and most well-edited book I've ever written. It sold maybe 1000 copies. I lost about $10,000 producing and marketing it.
It was my "passion" project which I hoped would take off because of how much time and effort I invested into it (and in a niche that should appeal to a lot of people). But in the end, my super crappy books written several years ago (I consider them crappy from hindsight, not at the time I was writing them), edited by a cheap editor from Fiverr, made six figures.
The book publishing industry is very unpredictable and rarely matches your expectations (which some huge bestsellers rejected by 50+ editors also prove).
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