Picking a Genre

Goddess, I feel old. I've only been doing this indie publishing a little over six years, and somehow I'm an old-timer. Lately, I've been seeing writers with no trad publishing experience and only a year or two of indie experience whining about how hard this business is and why aren't they making six figures a month.

When I take a look at their catalog though, I see one novel in romance, two in urban fantasy, three erotica shorts, and a young adult novel. All under different pseudonyms.

Can anyone in the audience name the problem? Anyone? Bueller?

*headdesk*

If someone reads your romance novel AND they like it, usually they want to read more of your romance. You aren't going to sell more of that same romance novel to that same reader.

Now, maybe that reader would have read your YA, too. But they can't find your YA because you put under another, totally unrelated name. So how are you going to sell a second book to your reader if they can't find you?

This is another example of lottery thinking. Jumping from genre to genre isn't going to win you readers because not everyone reads the same genre or the same sets of genres.

If you need to write in different genres, pick something related. For example, fantasy is a pretty broad genre. By June of 2018, I'll have 13 books in one series of UF, three books in a sword and sorcery series, four books in paranormal romance series, and three books in a superhero series. All these books are under the same name. There's quite a bit of crossover in readership.

On the other hand, I have fourteen books under the Alter Ego pseudonym under the broad genre brush of erotic romance ranging from hot paranormal romance to BDSM romance to ménage. Again, there's a lot of crossover among that readership.

Since there's not a lot of cross appeal between the two broad audiences, it doesn't make to have the same pseudonym.

Notice something else? Yeah, there's a lot of books for a reader to choose from.

I'm not out writing cozy mysteries, military sci-fi, or sweet romance. I'm sticking to a category and building it.

Now, granted I've slipped over the last few years in the production department, but I'm still averaging three figures a month in income. Why? BECAUSE I HAVE A LOT OF BOOKS.

Okay, maybe not as many as say Amanda M. Lee or Kris Rusch.

But the more books you have in the same genre, the more likely it is a reader will discover one of them  and check out the rest.

One thing I haven't done is genre-jump in an effort to hit the lottery. Also, I'm sticking to genres I love to read. Why? Because the last thing I want is to hit the jackpot on a genre I hate. I don't want to be stuck writing stuff I actively dislike. Life's too short, and frankly, I don't want to earn living at something I hate. Hell, I can go back to farming if I want to make myself miserable.

When someone asks, my advice is to write what you love. Write the types of books you want to read but can't find. I guarantee you there's someone else out there, just like you, wanting to read the same stuff you wish were on the bookshelves or your e-reader. You'll make everyone a lot happier, including yourself.

Caught Between Worlds

I'm trapped and really wish I could ditch the feeling.

Part of it's the fact that I write blended genres. I'm one of those people who will read just about anything. I literally have just about anything on my shelves. From Playboy to the Holy Bible. From the Uncanny X-Men to The Complete Works of Shakespeare.

Writers from ages past. Homer. Sun Tzu. The Brothers Grimm. Anais Nin.

Writers from today. Robert Heinlein. Scott Turow. Neil Gaiman. Nora Roberts.

They all influence me. Yet, if I don't write within other people's proscribed rules then there's something wrong with me.

Let me correct that. If I don't write within other writers' proscribed rules...

A few years ago, I wrote an urban fantasy novel with bits of romance, adventure and horror. When I sent it to my critique group at the time, I said, "This is urban fantasy."

The first critique I got back started with, "This isn't a romance. This is an urban fantasy."

*facepalm*

Yeah, I get that I met y'all through Romance Writers of America. That doesn't mean I have to write ONLY contemporary romance between an unattached male and an unattached female twenty-four/seven!

Yet, if I do write within the proscribed rules, my prose can be correctly compared to watching paint dry.

Then other days, I'm pretty sure it's not me. It's them. The other writers. The ones who (heaven-forbid!) dont' read outside their proscribed narrow circle of what's correct.

So what's a writer like me to do?

Fuck all the other writers! (Not literaly, folks.) The only ones that matter in this equation are the readers. As long as my readers are happy, I'm happy. And when I'm happy, I don't feel quite so stuck anymore.

Controversy and Friendships

Before I get into today's post, I'm going to make a change on the what-I'm-reading header by including the format of the book.  So, drumroll please. . .

Currently reading - Pale Demon by Kim Harrison (HC)

I'm heading off-road for some writer psychological analysis.

The whole e-book vs. print book controversy seems to be taking a weird twist lately.  Someone I know who's traditionally published went on a--well, tirade would be the best word--about the recent changes in the publishing.

On the surface, it sounds as if she's against people diverging from the traditional publishing path, but that's not the case.  She's scared.  Scared that she's made the wrong choices in her career in the face of the recent publishing chaos.  Scared she'll have to start over if her publisher crashes and burns.  Scared she won't have a brick-and-mortar store to sell her books at because her publisher is focusing only on print books.

And this is where being an empath sucks.  The words I hear her saying and the psychic flood crashing into me are two different things.  I've learned from experience when the other person isn't acknowledging her own feelings, me pointing out the discordance will only piss them off more.  But by the same token, I'm not going to roll over and play dead if you're dissing anyone, including me, on a personal level.

Ironically, later on the day of the tirade, I received an e-mail from another published acquaintance.  We'd had some words months ago about whether she should try SF&F.  She was very much against writing SF&F despite that she loved reading it.  In fact, she had lots of reasons not to write SF&F, most of which sounded logical on the surface.

But in reality, her objections were also based in fear.  She'd already lost agents and contracts when the first genre she wrote tanked years ago.  It had taken her a long time to find another agent and break back into publishing, and she did so under another name and a second genre.  She couldn't stand the thought of another uphill battle.

So what was in her e-mail?  Her cover for her new-you guessed it-SF&F novel.

What can you--whether you're trad-published, indie-published or a newbie--take from my experiences?

1)  There is no right, perfect, predictable path to your goals.  Get over it.

2)  Your path is not the same as everyone else's.  Get over it.

3)  You can't tell anyone else what path to follow.  You can try.  They probably won't listen.  See #1.

How to Explain Genres

A new writer asked me the difference between genres and literary fiction the other day. I wish I had this with me. The marvelously funny Jay Lake does a much better job than me.