Wet Noodle Posse

Friday, June 27, 2008

Question and Answer Friday

Look, I remembered!

Lots of information this week - time for those questions!

I for one want to know how to market yourself if you write two different kind of books....

10 Comments:

At 9:32 AM, Margay Leah Justice said...: Me, too! I've been reading a lot lately about the need for authors to "brand" themselves in order to create a platform off of which to launch/base a career. But what if you write in more than one genre? What do you do then?

Personally, I don't want to go the way of pen names, if I can avoid it, but here's my problem: When I write the stories, I don't write them to a specific genre. I just write them the way they come to me and then figure out what genre to classify them as. Consequently, I have things in just about every category there is! Because of this, I don't want to be locked into any one genre (not that I'm knocking that because I'm not); I just want to write the stories as they come to me. So how do I work with that? How do I market myself? Do I create a new sub-category - the multi-genre author?

Any advice would be great. Thanks!
At 10:01 AM, Trish Milburn said...: Hi, Margay. As one who has written lots of different types of stories, I understand where you're coming from. When I was still submitting as an unpublished author, I would just send out everything. But now that I've sold, I'm for the moment sticking with two different types of books -- my Harlequin Americans and the YA books. I write them under different, but similar, names. I do want to publish other types of books, but I may not until I have a few of these others under my belt and out on store shelves.

As for branding, since I do write different types of things, I'm trying to brand my name(s) and the look of my site rather than the books. Thus, my business cards and bookmarks look like my Web site design.
At 10:19 AM, Margay Leah Justice said...: Trish, what great advice! Thank you. I think branding the website for the different types of books is brilliant. How is it working out for you, using the different, but similar, names?
At 1:18 PM, Trish Milburn said...: So far, so good. We'll see when the books come out. :)
At 10:47 AM, Janet Mullany said...: Margay, you may have to use two or more names to avoid getting trapped by option clauses, and you can decide how and if you'll cross market.

Really, I wouldn't worry about it. Although agents/editors have to position you initially, they also like writers who can demonstrate versatility and flexibility.
At 10:48 AM, Janet Mullany said...: Here's a question--how do you brand yourself if you're living in the US, publishing in the UK? Does anyone know the market there?

(And I'm asking this question all over the place, sorry!)
At 10:54 AM, Margay Leah Justice said...: Janet, thank you so much for the input. This is something I do worry about (when I allow myself to think about it) because of the process by which I come up with my ideas. They usually come to me pretty much fully formed and like I said, I don't give much thought to the genre until after it's already written. Food for thought...
At 11:30 AM, Anonymous said...: Margay said:
"...you may have to use two or more names to avoid getting trapped by option clauses..."

This can be avoided by tight wording of the option clause, e.g. "next fantasy historical romance" or "next young adult romance" or "next book-length western historical romance" (which is how tightly one of my option clauses read). Your agent should be able to take care of this, but you need to discuss it with him/her to make sure you don't get caught with a generic "next book" or "next romance" clause.
At 6:39 PM, Margay Leah Justice said...: Lisa, that's good to know. I'll have to keep that in mind. Thank you.
At 9:29 AM, Esri Rose said...: I'm not quite that tight, but close. Kensington has the option on my next "paranormal romance fiction."