I've also written YA fantasy (which I hope will be published one day), and I continue to want to write what I want to write.
I think there are some good things about this, but there's also a downside. For the most part, I think traditional publishers want to fit their authors into certain molds, and that seems to work well. For example, when I pick up a Brandon Sanderson novel, I know what kind of novel I'm going to get, in both genre and writing. I think that's a very good thing. It's a branding thing.
But I don't want to only write and publish YA science fiction. So I've struggled over the past couple of years. Should I write under pen names? Why can't I write adult romance and YA science fiction? Can't readers look at covers and back cover copy and know what kind of book they're going to get?
I've never really been sure what the right answer is. Do you have any ideas? Do you typically write in the same genre, or have you been exploring in different genres?
I write everything from picture books to middle grade to YA to NA to even adult now. And I write romance under a pen name. When I sold my first book I was told I was branded as a paranormal author, and that bothered me to no end. Yes, branding can be good, but I can't be confined to only writing YA paranormal. I just can't. I tell the stories I need to tell.
ReplyDeleteI think this is one aspect from the business side of the industry that is hard to push past. Even Stephen King wrote his romances under a pen name. Granted, someone called him out on it, but he is SK. I don't know what the answer is: use your name but have separate websites for the different genres??? I've recently been thinking a lot about this because I write the gamut of kidlit. Do I show my YA & MG books on the same site or do I have two separate sites? Not sure....
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