Going Indie means freedom! Rah! Rah! Shisk boom bah!
That means we can write what ever we want in what ever genre we want and no one is there to tell us no. I appreciate that freedom and the creative control of self-publishing. I do, really.
Of course, authors can do this all with varied results. The switching of genres could be a smashing success or it could result in little cross over of fans and basically rebuilding from scratch. How will it turn out for you? I don’t know. 🙂
I can say that with the first book in a new series releasing this spring, I am extremely happy that it is within my genre of YA contemporary. That means I can cross promote! For me, this is huge when it comes to marketing.
Among many ideas, a month before my new book releases I can put the first chapter in the back of A Spy Like Me and I won’t leave readers scratching their heads.
What do you think about genre hopping? Have you tried it with success?
Check out the Indelibles blog for all the participants!
**This is not to say you shouldn’t try a new genre. I’m all for creative freedom.
***This also is not to say that writing within genre will mean success or immediate sales, though one can hope.
At this point in time, I have no plans or desire to genre hop. I think it would be detrimental to what I’ve started. Of course, I won’t say never, because, like you said, I love that I make my own creative decisions. If I were ever doing this full time and writing faster, I could see trying something a little different.
I think my writing preferences are kind of like my reading preferences. Sometimes I’m in the mood for comedy and other times something darker. I haven’t really strayed from YA, though.
I love writing in different genres and I have but when I sit and plan out a new series or my production schedule for the year and when I sat down to create a marketing plan for my new series, it hit me out awesome it will be that both my series will help promote each other. 🙂
I’s fine for an author to stick to whatever genre she likes writing best. But I love it when my favorite authors genre-hop! Authors are artists and need to explore.
Happy reading and writing! from Laura Marcella @ Wavy Lines
I’m not planning to switch genres at this point. I write and love fantasy and there’s lots of different types of fantasy to write so I’m okay with that.
I just read Panic by Lauren Oliver and it was a fantastic contemporary and different from her usual genre. I think it depends on the author whether it’s a good idea to switch genres.
I’ve thought about writing fantasy, but at the moment sticking with space opera.
I genre-hopped quite a bit with my shorter works, but for my novels, I plan to stick with one genre for a while. That’s not to say I won’t genre-hop down the line, but I think I owe it to potential fans to stick with one instead of putting out one of this type and the next book a different type, etc.
As a reader, I’ll genre hop to pursue an author I like. As a writer, I admit to being a genre hopper, but sci-fi will always be my first love.
I unintentionally started writing a story in a completely different genre this past October. It’s one that had been in the back of my mind for a long time and I guess it was just ready to come out. It was never my plan to write across genres, but this story has become a bit of an obsession. I couldn’t ignore it! Yes, it will prevent me from cross promoting. Then again, I may never publish it, or I may even use a pen name with it, but I’m glad I wrote it. Not only has it allowed me to explore a writing style that I had never attempted, it also forced me to dig deeper into emotions in my writing which I have never been strong at. I feel like doing this has energized my writing.
I’ve been all over the place when it come to YA genres. I took a chance trying something else (NA contemp romance) and it worked for me. Two years ago I never imaged myself writing it.
Funny you mention this…I’ve thought about writing in different genres, mainly adult, but I haven’t hopped yet. But with indie publishing I love that we’re not bound to certain genres. Freedom!!
I like to explore and have fun switching it up, however, I have a couple of failed attempts at paranormal…I guess I’m not the best at planning out all the details and rules of the complicated worlds and characters I try to create in that genre. Contemporary for me…so far! Christy
Interesting to hear your thoughts on this, as I posted on switching genres today for Insecure Writer’s group.