Crossing genres
I have only written one book outside my usual m/m erotic romance genre. It was a mainstream thriller, more young adult spy-thriller than anything else. It was one of my earliest novels and centered around a young computer genius and a band of special services soldiers titled FLIGHT OF THE SPARROWS.
M/M erotic romance to mainstream YA. Yeah, it’s as far from an m/m erotic romance as you can get, but I didn’t worry about whether or not it would affect my branding or my readers’ opinion of me. It was something I wanted to write, a storyline that came to me in a smooth flow of characters and plot, and I had to give it life. I don’t stop to consider if a story is outside the box I am usually placed in by the writing community and its audience. I just write what comes to me.
I think my readers are intelligent people who can read a blurb or book summary and decide for themselves if the story appeals to them no matter who the author is. Just because I write sizzling gay romance isn’t any reason to think I can’t write a spy novel or a mystery aimed at a different audience. Just like everyone has more than one favor of ice cream or type of food they enjoy, an author can be successful in more than one genre.
3 comments:
Hi Laura,
In today's publishing world, it seems to me an author can choose the degree of separation they want between genres they write.
I've written in two subgenres of romance and would like to write in another as well. I'll use a pen name for my books, but I'd like to use the same one for all genres the way you have.
Having two names is going to be hard enough, let alone three or four!
I enjoyed your take on this.
I agree that readers are intelligent people - I also know that I've picked up a book by a favorite author without reading the blurb - because it is by a favorite author.
Some stories do just 'come to us' and we do give them life...one of the positive things in the changing, shifting world of publishing.
Laura, I belive a writer needs to write what they are passionate about. If readers aren't interested in one genre they may like the other and you actually build your readership and may eventually pull more readers of one into the other. Who knows.
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