When people interview me one of the questions that always seems to pop up is “why do you write in different genres?” The question surprised me. I thought, writing a story is writing a story. But then I started reading marketing advice for writers. Branding is a word that continued to be bantered around.
Did I have a brand if I was supposedly bouncing all over the spectrum of erotic writing? I panicked. Who was I?
Then I stepped back and looked closely at the stories I’ve written.
The Healer’s Garden – Takes place in a future earth where a man and a woman are trying to find their way in a world that doesn’t believe they should be together. But riding on that relationship is some mystery that carries through the story.
Blind Love – A contemporary romance about two people discovering who they are and falling in love with each other. But the heroine is working to unravel the mystery behind her friend’s death.
Love’s Bounty – Centers around drug running up the Maine coast, but in the thick of it, two people discover love.
Arranging Love – An engaged couple discovers love isn’t always enough and fights to hold their relationship together. But a stalker infiltrates their lives and threatens everything they’ve become together.
Blue Moon Rising – A woman with a battered heart isn’t looking for love, but she finds it with a man who claims to be a wolf shifter. When a slaughtered body is found on the property where she’s vacationing, he has to wonder if she’s somehow involved.
Huh.
I relaxed. Those aren’t different genres in my opinion. The thread tying them together is the mystery/suspense part of the plot. I’m all about the puzzle. Weaving the story in such a way that hopefully the reader falls in love with the book while the main characters fall in love with each other. But on the coattails of the romance is something that keeps the danger up, the questions running through the reader’s mind…the mystery if you will. And of course there’s the added heat of the sex. *g*
Erotic suspense.
Not different genres. The same genre with a change of characters. It doesn’t matter to me where the story is set. Future, present or past. (Nope, haven’t done an historical yet … but I’m thinking about it.) The occupation of the character changes, but I can’t see how it matters if my hero is a breeder, a modern day piano player, wolf-shifting cop, or my current … a vampire firefighter. Isn’t it all about the sexy guy falling for the kick-ass girl next door and the life and death situations I throw them into?
So, what do you think? Should an author brand themselves and stay within one genre … say paranormal? Or do you mind picking up books by the same author that have different flavors to them?
Cause now I’m curious.
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