Friday, September 14, 2007

Different genres




As many of you know, I love to write historicals; Victorians / Westerns / Colonial. I have also written a few books that are comtemporary / romantic comedy. I also have a few stories in the works that are paranormal / time-travel. This is fine and dandy if I stick with electronic companies or small presses...so I've been told. But I want a variety. Not only do I want to be with the small presses, I want to shoot for the big guys.

However, I was told that to make it with the big guys, I have to stick to one genre. Well, since my favorite is historical, I'm definitely going to stick to that. But what about the others I have? Will the big editors / agents even look at me if I write other genres? Then, the other day, I heard about a brand new author who has a historical with AVON, and then just recently contracted a two-book deal for her spicy contemporaries. Hmmmm... Are things changing, or did I just get the wrong information?

What's your opinion?

~Phyllis~

2 comments:

Becka said...

Hmm... I think things are changing in New York. Rather than branding the name to one genre, they are allowing that person to branch out. Consider Nalini Singh. Lovely woman who writes awesome stories. She got her start in the "vanilla" Silhouette Desire. Now, she's writing spicy paranormals.

Perhaps it depends on the house you are with, or whether or not you're already "established" as an author who writes all across the board. Imagine New York trying to tell "Rebecca Goings" to ONLY write historical. Or Contemporary. Well, I've already got a history of writing EVERYTHING, so they couldn't really contain it at that point.

Also, authors change. Julie Garwood used to write awesome historicals. Now she does romantic suspense or something. It is odd, but it happens.

~~Becka
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Taryn Raye said...

I'm not really sure. I have noticed shifts in the balance of what writers put out. I really like it that the publishers would be willing to put you out in more than one genre, though there are a lot of writers who write under different names depending on their genre, but sometimes I don't think it really matters except in cases like an inspirational author who decides to write erotica or something like that.

If I like the author, I would be looking for ALL their books, regardless of genre because I love variety and good books.