More Types than One

So I worked at a comic shop for a number of years during college. I saw thousands of different people with thousands of different interests. One of the more curious types of people I saw, though, were those who would only read one type of comic.

We had one guy that would read anything that had Spider-Man in it. Anything. And absolutely nothing else. I never really got that. I mean, you like Spider-Man? Cool. So do I! But there are so many different kinds of stories out there. Why grab just that one kind?

And that’s been my way of reading. I rarely read the same genre two books in a row. I’ll almost always stay in speculative fiction, but I bounce around a lot. Hard science fiction. Cozy fantasy. Hard-boiled detective. Some classic science fiction. Maybe a western. You get the idea.

And the problem with that is… well, you end up writing what you read. Which means what I write… isn’t all one thing.

Lately the biggest thing I’ve been writing is the series coming from Dawnsbrook Press. Those bounce around from fantasy to science fiction and back again (though we may have some horror coming in a few years, too!), but the audience is middle grade. That makes for certain expectations for violence levels, for instance.

But… I don’t just read middle grade fiction. And I don’t just write middle grade fiction!

For instance, this coming week, my book Welcome to Scar Ridge comes out! It’s a horror western that is… well, I’d grade it hard PG-13. It takes the tropes of a western and various horror tropes and mashes them together. It’s not a happy book. I wouldn’t recommend it for middle school students!

Which is one of the reasons why Dawnsbrook isn’t putting it out. I’m honored to be published again by Dark Owl Publishing, a great company I’ve worked with in the past. Dawnsbrook has a target audience: Middle school kids. Welcome to Scar Ridge doesn’t fit that.

And here’s the problem with all this: Who am I writing for? Who’s my audience?

Yes.

It’s hard to market an author who writes to different audiences. It’d be a lot easier to sell books if I just focused on one thing.

But… I like reading lots of different things. So at least for now… I guess I’ll keep writing lots of different things.

How about you? Do you keep to just one genre in your reading or your writing? How do you balance your genres if you hop around?

And hey, you should check out Welcome to Scar Ridge. Here’s some advance reviews: