I am currently doing a lot of homework whilst my friend looks over Djinn.
Every day I visit all my RSS feeds, I’ve subscribed to Publishers Marketplace (definitely worth it for $20 a month) and I look at querytracker.com and compile lists of agents to approach once Djinn is ready to go out to into the wide world on its query quest.
I am thinking of looking at both US and UK agents. It makes sense to me at least. It gives Djinn a bigger chance…no, I am lying. It gives ME, Djinn’s creator, a better chance to hopefully get an agent who will care enough about Djinn (and me) to get us a publishing deal.
One of the blog posts I stumbled across is one on the newly discovered The Big Bad Book Blog where they talk about Seven Guidelines on Genre and Market Trends. In this article you will find a lot of sobering information. For instance, what grabbed my attention is this:
Choose one genre. You have a dozen ideas in as many genres? That’s wonderful. Now choose one. Yes, just one. You may not decide which one it is until after writing a couple of books and getting a feel for your style and strengths and even interests. But it is very rare to successfully cross genres, and then only once you’ve established yourself in one. When you query agents or publishers, choose your best writing. Be honest.
This little paragraph then links to this excellent article by the always eloquent and always forthright agent Rachelle Gardner’s blog. In this article she gives the reason why you need to look at staying in one genre:
This is a marketing issue, first and foremost. If you want to publish books, attract a loyal readership, and have long-term success as an author, then you’ll need to pick a genre, do it well, and keep doing it over and over. Simple as that. All the arguing in the world and all the talent in the world is not going to change this reality.
There are a tranche of comments below this article and all of them make valid points, such as what about writing heroic or traditional fantasy as Mike Swordbrandisher whilst also writing paranormal romance or urban fantasy novels as Talulah Honeysuckle? How do you pull this off?
But back to the genre writing: it’s something I keep wondering myself. I love so many genres and have written short stories in a variety of them. I love middle grade and YA novels and I like writing for them, but what I’ve come to realise is that people see these two groups as GENRES. And they are not. Middle Grade and YA = target audience. And THAT is where your specialising comes into play. I think.
Within these target audiences, you find your genres. For instance, as Sarah Prineas so eloquenty said in 140 letters on Twitter a few moments ago: ”genre” is “paranormal romance” or “urban fantasy” or “thriller” or “horror” whilst the ”target audience” is “readers of paranormal romance, urban fantasy, thriller or horror.”
Clear?
So what about writing under two different names for two different genres? TIME. Baby, time’s gotta be on your side. Can you steadily and seriously maintain a writing schedule that will enable having two books being published a year, maybe even more – to support your different personas? Think about it – unless you have a tardis, or amazing managerial skills, then no – chances are that everything you do will suck. Because you won’t have time honing and perfecting and specialising. Think about it. Think carefully. As much as I would like to wear a variety of hats like the Mad Hatter I won’t be able to. I would love to write an epic fantasy series – I love reading these and they are still a staple diet. Or even urban fantasy – man, since the first time I picked up a copy of Charles de Lint’s Moonheart, my little heart beat a tattoo for stories where myths and legends stalked modern cities. Or maybe I can do paranormal romance – say what you will, the market is huge, the authors’ talents are wide and varied and it is fun reading. I love kick-butt heroines , magic, creatures that go bump in the night and impossibly complicated relationships.
And as much as I love these established adult genres, I still think – and hope that – my talent lies writing for the younger folk as a target audience. Because the cool thing about writing books for younger folk here in the UK at least, is that their bookshelves are not catergorised into different genres – age yes, genre no. Not yet. You have all the above fantastic genres (maybe not quite that much paranormal romance) lobbed into one massive kids’ section and you can go wild and read anything your little heart desires. And that’s magic because like Forest said: you never know what you’re gonna get.
About the picture used: I stumbled across this picture by this vastly talented artist called Aly Fell – this is the blog it came from. Please do not take any of the art, without linking back to the blog. This is Aly’s main site - I am green with envy!