Can Writing in Multiple Genres Hurt Your Sales Potential?

When it comes to fiction, authors seem to fall into two camps: those who have multiple favorite genres and want to explore all of them and those who couldn’t imagine wanting to pen stories outside of their chosen niches.

One of the things we noticed when looking at many of the successful independent authors in the fantasy/science fiction arena was that they all wrote in series (many had multiple books out in multiples series), and most of them stuck to one genre. In the cases where they wrote in multiple genres, they tended to be related (i.e. fantasy and science fiction).

As we’ve discussed before, there’s a lot of power in a series. If people like the first book, subsequent books often become auto-buys. Also, the series itself is out there where it can be discovered for a long time (every time you publish and promote a new book, there’s a chance that fresh readers will chance upon it, and that’ll rekindle interest in the earlier books). With self-publishing, you can change prices on a whim, and this can help tremendously when you have a series; you can offer the first book for free or 99 cents to get people into the adventure, and then use normal pricing for subsequent books.

So, what happens if you like to write stand-alone books? And, more, what if those stand-alone books are in different genres? Western, science fiction, romance, thriller, historical non-fiction on the importance of basket weaving in Sub-Saharan Africa…

If you have multiple unrelated books out, you may have already discovered that one sells better than the others, and people just don’t go on to try the others you’ve written. If so, you’re not alone. I’ve seen indie authors rock it with one book, maybe even reaching the Top 100 in the Kindle Store, only to see mediocre sales on subsequent books if they’re not related to the first. And, if the books are in different genres, getting readers to cross over seems to be even more of a stretch.

What are your options, then, if you like to genre hop?

I’ve thought about this because I’d like to try my hand at space opera some day, and there might be an urban fantasy series in there somewhere. Even in the SF/F area, though, you’ve got folks who will only read epic fantasy or only urban fantasy, and getting them to try your other books can be a challenge. Here are a few suggestions:

Make use of the “afterword” area in your books to cross-promote – You can include previews of one or more of your other works at the end of your most popular ebooks, so why not post a few pages of something with a similar style? Even if you’re writing in different genres, you’ll probably have some distinctive you traits that appear in all of your work, and that’s likely part of what drew people into your first book. If you can get the reader to try one of your unrelated stories, maybe they’ll get into it even if it’s not in a genre they typically buy. (It occurs to me, as I write this, that I should probably do more cross-promotion of my own unrelated ebooks!)
Include your social media sites, blog, newsletter signup details, etc. — It’s always good to encourage people to follow you online and sign up for your newsletter (even if they read your thriller and aren’t interested in the historical romance you’ve got out now, your next book may be more up their alley, so it’s worth keeping in touch with them).
Think about whether a series makes sense in one or more of your chosen genres — Even if you’re a genre-hopper, you can still utilize the power of the series. If you’re at all inclined to write that sort of fiction, you might want to leave things open for the possibility of sequels. Even with only two linked books, you can start seeing some of the benefits of writing in a series.
Work on branding yourself instead of specific books — When you’re writing in one main series, it makes sense to try to turn the series into the brand, i.e. the Harry Potter books. But when you’re jumping genres, you’re going to have a lot of work on your hands if you try to and create a brand for every world you create. I’ve seen authors do three or four different pen names because they’re writing in three or four different genres, but I don’t think this is necessary unless there’s a possibility that some of your books will offend readers of the other books (i.e. if you write both children’s books and steamy romances). Ultimately, you end up with a ridiculous amount of work if you’re maintaining online presences for all of these entities. Instead of building one career, you’re trying to build three. Also, you lose out on those readers who will follow you across genres. Instead, I suggest finding the common thread (you) that runs through all of your books and turning that into your distinctive brand, replete with a little tagline that applies to all of your books. Amy Smith, the queen of wry humor, explosive adventures, and geeky heroines (okay that could be my tagline…). If those qualities are typically in all of Amy’s books, then it’d make a lot of sense to offer that promise as part of her “brand.”

All right, that’s enough from me. I do think writing in multiple genres can make it tougher to succeed, at least from a financial standpoint, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. In the end, you have to go with what you enjoy writing if you want to have a chance of turning this into a career.

Do you have any thoughts on what else authors can do when they’re trying to succeed across multiple genres?

Related Posts:

Pros and Cons of Writing a Series
Indie Writing and Traditional Storytelling with Alan Dean
The Ebook Omnibus: A Win for You and Your Readers