If you're a writer, there is always that question: Which genre should you write in? But if you have already been publishing in one genre, what happens if you try to switch? What if you wanted to try something different?
I have been writing romance under a different pen name and I've decided to make the switch to writing YA horror/fantasy, which is drastically different, but it was something I have always wanted to do. Writing romance allowed me to learn about self-publishing and what it took to market your own work.
Here are three things I learned when making the transition.
Research. Research. Research.
Researching on what genre I wanted to write helped me immensely. Before writing romance, I had tons of those books in my Kindle library (it helps to have a Kindle subscription). Now that I'm switching over to writing for young adults, I decided to re-read my favorite books when I was a nerdy teenager.
One of my most favorite series (well besides Harry Potter & Lord of the Rings ofcourse!); is the Pendragon series. I'm currently re-reading Pendragon: The Merchant of Death. I aim to get a feel of YA books again and pick apart what hooked me in the books as a teenage reader.
2. You will lose your audience. Well, the majority of them.
I had built a pretty large following with my prior genre and accumulated an email list. It wouldn't make sense to advertise YA books to my readers when they all prefer a drastically different genre. You also risk getting a bad review if they pre-ordered your horror or thriller type of novel when they expected a romance (if you decide to write under the same pen-name). I suggest choosing a new pen-name and start building your audience from scratch.
3. Marketing technique is different.
The genre that I had been writing before (romance) was highly lucrative. There are many different niches and genres within romance. It's a bit different with YA fiction. You never know what will take off, but it helps to research keywords, but that’s for another day.
The competition is fierce, and it would be quite the challenge to topple Harry Potter off the number one spot on Amazon, or any of the behemoth YA books turned into movies (Hunger Games, Twilight, Divergent).
But for marketing and advertising, figure out what your audience would most likely use. For older people, Facebook might be it. For the young adult audience Twitter, Instagram, even TikTok could be an option now if you're creative enough. It's of course, always best to focus on one social media tool and put your all into it to get the most out of your marketing efforts.
Well that's all I have today. Good luck writing!!
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