Authors in Multiple Genres

The beginning of my week was hectic: there were so many assignments to do and small errands to complete that I didn't even get time to breathe. But on Thursday, after my final quiz of the week, I had a large chunk of time to get work done. After a few hours of homework I began to lose steam as I completed all the assignments due relatively soon and the only thing left was to study for next week's midterms.

Then I decided to get some writing done. Not the "fun story" that I talked about last week, but the one that I'm editing. It took me half an hour of Youtube and two cups of tea before I decided to tackle it and it felt great. I didn't get much time to do it because of another commitment later on in the day, but the act of editing my story felt like a relief. Even though I haven't been feeling very homesick lately (that was the first week), it was comforting.

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Most authors become brands. When you think of John Grisham your mind immediately jumps to thrillers. But if you were to pick up a novel with his name on the cover and it turns out to be a romance book you will be confused, like if Nicholas Sparks wrote a horror or StephenKing wrote a . For this reason agents and publishers encourage authors to stay with one genre.

When an authors gains popularity, they cultivate a fan base. There will definitely be some readers who will be willing to transfer with the author into another genre, but it will require a lot more marketing before they can hope to attain the same popularity. It is as though they as starting from scratch. Of course, famous authors can get away with this because of how well known their name is, but they can get away with a lot more than an author with only a few novels to their name.

One way to circumvent this problem quite easily is to use a pseudonym. After the phenomena of Harry Potter, JK Rowling used the pseudonym Robert Galbraith to write her crime series. Interestingly, she sent her new novel to many publishers who rejected her. They claimed to have enjoyed her novel but not loved. The publisher who finally accepted her novel was the one she had used for Harry Potter.

By using a pseudonym, whether it is known or not, allows readers to differentiate between that author's genres. There are authors like Brandon Sanderson who write for middle grade, young adult, and adults but all his novels are fantasy.

In my opinion, unless you are an established author, do not attempt to write in two different genres. It will just make your journey that much harder. By devoting your time to two genres, you will write less books in each and it will be more difficult to retain interest from your fan base.

Though there is something to be said for writing in different genres to keep your interest high. By rehashing the same material it can make your creativity go stale. Instead consider meshing your genres. If you usually write science fiction and you want to write a mystery, simple write a mystery with a science fiction setting.

But at the end of the day, you should be writing what you love. If you want to write a fantasy, don't force your way through a contemporary because your frustration will come through in your writing. When you make the decision, make sure that you are aware of the issues that come with it.