Question of Style

[Mike]

My novel 'Rebecca' is a vampire story, it has some sex and violence, but it's probably a hard "R" if we're doing movie ratings.

I wrote another short story, about 35 - 40 pages, a few years ago as a practice run on how to finish and publish a book, but also as a kind of exercise on how ... raw, I guess would be a good word for it ... I could be. That one is absolutely an NC-17.

I published it on Smashwords under a pen name, and without any advertising sold a little over 100 units.

Now I'm thinking about re-releasing it under my own name and pushing it a bit. But the styles are soooo different between the two books I worry about maybe misleading readers.

Someone who enjoyed Rebecca could have a heart attack after reading the other one, while a fan of "Letters" - my other story - might feel let down, as everything is toned down in Rebecca.

Any advice?

[Riley, Viking Extraordinaire]

I probably am not the guy to help you here, since I have an epic fantasy, a zombie apocalypse, and a female driven urban fantasy all under my belt, all with very different styles. I say just use the pen name, since you've established a base with it. Let your readers decide.

[[deleted user]]

Look, Mike. You don't have to be stuck in one genre. Your blurb tells what your book is about. You may, after all these years, feel that making this early effort a full book may require, as you style has changed, to rewrite, expand, change some of the original. Take some chances and get some beta readers to look at both attempts, and see if the "new you" is a better writer.

If the earlier book is a kids story the equivalent of "Old Yellar," and you still feel excited about the project, don't worry about if you just wrote something darker. True, the vampire-reading crowd may not like this work, but your work may appeal to a whole different audience

Morris

[Bruce]

Another option is to promote your book through your pseudonym's pages, and vice-versa.

[Mike]

Morris wrote: "Look, Mike. You don't have to be stuck in one genre. Your blurb tells what your book is about. You may, after all these years, feel that making this early effort a full book may require, as you sty..."

Yeah, I could spell it out in the blurb I guess. They are both technically 'horror' stories so it's not a large stretch for the audience. Even though it's kind of like saying both The Notebook & Deep Throat were technically both 'love' stories.

I did think of promoting under the pen name, but it's enough work just keeping up with the one, so I'd like to keep it simple.

[G.G.]

Either way, you'll be bound to let people know it's the same book you re-published. Else, people who already bought and read it might not be so happy with you. People who didn't know will now know. The genres are different? State it in the blurb. That's what it's for.

[Mike]

G.G. wrote: "Either way, you'll be bound to let people know it's the same book you re-published. Else, people who already bought and read it might not be so happy with you. People who didn't know will now know...."

Yeah, absolutely, I'm not planning on changing the title, and I will spell out in the blurb that it was previously published under the pen name ... I might even keep the same book cover.

[Dwayne, Head of Lettuce]

Mike wrote: "Now I'm thinking about re-releasing it under my own name and pushing it a bit. But the styles are soooo different between the two books I worry about maybe misleading readers."

I write a number of styles, especially humor, horror and general lit. Even then, the stories can be very different from one another. I haven't had any real complaints yet saying people felt mislead, thinking everything I write is the same style and finding out otherwise. When I publish, I'm careful to put the stories out under the genres I think best apply, use keywords that fit that style / genre and make sure the blurb fits the style and genre.

[Mike]

Dwayne wrote: "Mike wrote: "Now I'm thinking about re-releasing it under my own name and pushing it a bit. But the styles are soooo different between the two books I worry about maybe misleading readers."

I writ..."

Thanks for the advice, I re-released it last night and this morning, Amazon is still thinking it over, Smashwords has it up now.
I put a very clear warning on the blurb that there was strong violent and sexual content in this one.

If anyone's interested in checking it out ...

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...

Once Amazon approves I'll link it here to my profile.

[Micah]

Set the "Adult Content" flag on Smashwords too. That won't stop people from seeing it if they look at your author page, but at least it will reduce some random finds by sensitive people.

[Phillip]

Any number of writers write different genres and styles and readers don't feel ripped off. Elmore Leonard wrote westerns, and crime, for instance. Connie Willis writes serious and comedy. I write whatever the book demands, but I don't have a large enough audience to worry about. I think readers apprecitat that writers won't reproduce identical books, and the ones that don't would have been disappointed by the sequel anyway.