[LK]

The biggest questions I see him wrestling with are:
1) Is there an audience interested in this idea?
2) Is this worth my time to do?

The first is a no-brainer. You are on a fetish forum. Of course there are always going to be SOME people who are interested in the idea or what you are writing about that they will purchase it, regardless of quality. Their imagination will ignore any flaws in the work in the same way a comic book fan will forgive technical flaws in order to see what they paid for.

Further, you are going to have an issue of sampling and confirmation bias with the responses here.

Your main issue, and where I see a fundamental problem, is the second question. Rephrased, you're asking "Is there an audience large enough that, if I put in the time, I won't feel I have wasted my efforts?"

Creativity is about experimentation and play, not success or failure on the market. There's a good reason to keep the creatives in a company separate from the business and marketing guys.

I have a friend interested in photography who keeps making it about the idea he can sell and that people will be interested in so he can make a return on his investment of time. What I hear is that he is so focused on whether his project will also be a product with a market that he can't even get started and do photography for photography's sake. He thinks inside the box.

The cynical part of me thinks he posted this to get straight to the praise, recognition, and positive feedback from creating something people like. That's unearned, and I will viciously shut that down.