How to write in multiple genres
Pen names? Marketing? What?
Hi, I’m Kate. Ask an Author is an advice column for authors at all stages of writing, publishing, and hand-wringing. Have a question? Fill out this form and I’ll answer it in a future response!
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Thank you to all who filled out the poll I sent and shared your thoughts!! I learned that at least among the responders, you’re ALL fiction writers, most (but not all) of you are in the process of writing a book and most (but not all) of you are not yet published. You’re (slightly) more interested in craft than publishing, but you also have (slightly) more questions about publishing and querying than specifically about craft. I’m not quite sure how to square that circle, but whatever you’re interested in, the question form is open and I’d love to hear from you! (Don’t worry, non-fic writers —I’ve got you covered, too. :))
Dear Kate,
I’ve written a sci-fi novel and half a literary novel—should I market with two different pen names for the different genres, or will this mean starting from scratch for the second genre?
- Kitty
Dear Kitty,
Even though readers made it abundantly clear in the poll that you don’t like when I say “it depends”. . . I’m sorry (truly!) but I think (gulp!) it really does depend.
You’re right to be thinking ahead to the marketing stage. Genre is in many ways an arbitrary categorization, but it does give useful information to readers (and librarians, booksellers, reviewers, etc.) about where on the shelf your book sits and what other books it might be in conversation with. If you put out one book and the next book is in a wildly different genre, you need a way to signal to the readers and fans and booksellers who supported your first book that your next title is going to appeal to a different sector of readership. (Not that there isn’t overlap, but we’re intentionally painting with a big brush here.)
Hardcore sci-fi fans might not be into your quiet literary novel, or vise versa. If you then write, say, another sci-fi novel after your literary novel, but your sci-fi readers already said “I loved her first book but her other work isn’t for me,” then you’re going to have to work to woo them back. It starts to feel complicated, and I’m not sure that winds up being any more advantageous than launching a second name as a “new” author with a new debut.
In short: if you’re capturing a completely different readership, I think there’s a compelling case for keeping the books separate by publishing under different names. This could mean two pen names, or one as your pen name and one as your real name. This does mean starting over with a new name when the second book comes out, which can be hard.
But. . .
Do you think your readership will be completely different?
In the example above, I talked about “hardcore” sci-fi and “quiet” literary. But a lot of sci-fi has a broader crossover to mainstream audiences, and plenty of so-called literary fiction incorporates elements of sci-fi, spec fic, and fantasy. Much of what people call “literary fiction” is really commercial or upmarket fiction and has much in common with other genres in terms of its beats, conventions, marketing appeal, and writing style. Lit fic isn’t necessarily quiet, either! There are plenty of authors who pull from different genres with each book and do so quite successfully, always under one name. In this case, the question of what genre they’re writing under gets a bit more blurry, but their fans will follow them wherever they go.
This is where the “it depends” comes in. It depends on how wide the gulf between the two novels you’re writing, and how wide you anticipate the gulf in readership may be. There’s also a case to make for writing the books you want to write and trusting that your readers will stick with you because the core experience of reading your books—the questions you grapple with, the way you present them, the youness of your voice that goes into them—will carry across genre anyway.
There’s definitely a universe in which your first book comes out and it appeals to people who read sci-fi and also people who read good books generally, and then your second book comes out and it’s different but you know to anticipate that in your marketing and make it clear that this one isn’t sci-fi but is awesome in its own way, and you keep some of your readers and maybe lose some of your readers but pick up new readers, too—and this is what happens with any new book, regardless of genre. In that case, writing under one name will help those readers stick with you and your work, and will make your marketing life easier.
Again, it comes down to whether you think there’ll be meaningful overlap between the readers of your two books, or whether the books diverge enough that fans of one will NOT want to pick up the other.
But we may be getting ahead of ourselves. You’re not (yet) published, and I’m assuming from your question that you’re not (yet) agented, either. (If you are, this is definitely a question for your agent!)
You have a sci-fi novel. Is it completed? Revised? Out with beta readers? An editor? Revised again? Revised again? Revised yet again? Are you querying? Planning to self-publish? It’s a great move to be starting your next novel while you’re at any of the many, many, many points of waiting on the path to publication, whether that means waiting for feedback, or waiting while you’ve stepped away from your manuscript so you can approach it with fresh eyes, or waiting while you’re querying or, in the future, waiting while you’re on submission. Always start writing the next thing!
At the same time, if you don’t really know yet what’s going to happen with this first novel, there’s only so much planning you can do. You could come up with a whole marketing plan for your sci-fi novel and your literary novel and then. . . the sci-fi novel doesn’t sell or the literary novel doesn’t sell or it moves in a different direction than you’d expected or. . . I don’t know! I’m not saying you won’t finish these books or publish these books or do great things with these books! Just that we can’t predict the future, and while I said and will keep saying that it’s smart to be thinking ahead—there’s only so much you can worry about a thing that doesn’t exist yet. In this case the thing is not one book but two books, and you may find that any number of moving parts in both the writing and publishing processes play out differently than you’d anticipated.
As an example of how I’ve handled this very question:
I have my romance novels published under a pen name, and my literary fiction will be under my own name. My genres are so separate that I have two completely different agents for them, at two different agencies, and clauses in each agent contract such that one agent handles my Rebecca Brooks work and one agent handles my Kate Broad work. This made sense for me because romance is such a distinct genre and romance readers have STRONG feelings about making sure, when they pick up a romance, that it’s going to fulfill the promises of the genre. I wanted it to be 1,000% clear where to find the smoking hot books and where to find the oops I accidentally did a murder books, and never the twain shall meet.
If you see your genres as this separate, you may benefit from the clarity—for you, and for your readers—that comes from having two names. But it’s definitely more work to have two social media accounts, two newsletters, etc. (I am very bad at this.) The thing to do might be to finish the first book, pursue your path to publication while you’re finishing the second book, and revisit this question when you’re in a place where you really need to make the decision. You might have more of a sense, once you have an offer in hand or have laid the groundwork to self-publish, of how your two books fit together (or don’t fit together) and how to proceed from there.
My general understanding is that self-publishing is more receptive to genre fiction, like romance and sci-fi/fantasy, than it is to literary fiction. I’m not sure if you’re considering self-publishing, but where your lit fic novel would fit in with that landscape is something else to consider. If you want to self-pub the sci-fi novel and then get an agent for the lit fic, be aware that your sci-fi publication history won’t necessarily help you in the agent search, because even if you have REALLY AMAZING sales numbers, which is hard to accomplish no matter what, you’re starting in another genre so those readers, again, aren’t necessarily following you a) across genres and b) to a totally different platform (because many indie readers find books in different ways than trad readers!). If you’re searching for an agent for the sci-fi novel, I’d advise you keep up your search, keep writing the literary novel, and discuss the question of names and marketing when you’re in a place where you’re discussing your career and future books with your new agent—this is literally their job to advise you.
No matter what you decide, I hope you finish both of these books and don’t restrict yourself too early, and I also hope you read in widely and deeply in both genres and see what’s going on in the publishing landscape and think about where you most want to see yourself. Books under one name that are different but not unrecognizably so? Books under two names that are completely separate? Something in between, where you have two names but you house them both under one social media account and one website? Some of this depends on if you’re going trad or indie and therefore if you need to answer to an agent and a publisher or not, but you’re the author so you’re in the driver’s seat. Always!
Keep writing,
Kate
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