One of the hardest things for me as a writer is to stay within the same genre. Many authors have no problem with this – they write all sci-fi, or thrillers, or romance. Me, I’m all over the place. My novel due out in December 2013, The Lone Wolf, is women’s fiction. My next one, A Handful of Wishes (tentatively scheduled to be released in December 2014), is magical realism. The one I wrote for NaNo last year, On the Other Side (aiming for December 2015), is steampunk. A short story collection I want to publish in the next year or so, Between Light and Dark, is a mix of horror and romance. The collection I hope to have out soon, The Futility of Loving a Soldier, is contemporary.
Fortunately my publisher, Evolved Publishing, is okay with my eclectic stories and novels. And I know many writers use a pen name when branching out to something new.
Part of the problem, however, is marketing to the right audience. If someone enjoys my horror stories like “Tim and Sara,” there’s no guarantee they’ll like my women’s fiction novel. Steampunk fans might not enjoy contemporary stories.
If you write in multiple genres, how do you deal with this? And as a reader, how do you feel about a writer hopping through different genres?
As a reader, I don’t care what genres an author writes. It’s the stories themselves, I’m more interested in.