Before you start contacting agents and publishers, and ideally before you even take the plunge with that first book, it’s worth taking some time to think about what you want from your writing career.

Publishers are reluctant to invest in one-hit-wonders as it puts too much pressure on the performance of that one book to earn enough to cover the costs of publication and return a profit. If one book is all a particular author intends to produce it’s not really worth the publisher’s time and money.

A writer who is confident that they are in for the long haul is a more attractive prospect. Always remember that publishing is a business and publishers have to think of the bottom line or they will go bankrupt.

So, before you start writing your first book you need to decide if the genre you’re about to work in is one you’re willing to commit to and write other books in. Do you have ideas for other similar books? Would you be able to write a sequel to your first book if the publisher suggested it?

It’s not unusual for writers to be torn between their love for two or more different genres. You’ll often see on book covers “X Writer writing as Z Author” - usually when a writer wants to try a different genre and not confuse their readers.

If you have ideas for books in other genres, decide now how you want to approach this. Can you handle a career juggling two different genres? Bear in mind that this may require starting over with an entirely new publisher and perhaps even a new agent if the first doesn’t handle both your genres. Now is the time to focus on trying to find that elusive agent who can represent you in both genres, rather than hoping the agent you get will love you enough to help you sell the type of novel they’d rather not even read.

In Chapter 24 of Writing the Popular Novel, Loren Estleman, who alternatively writes in the Mystery genre and the Western genre, believes that alternating between the two genres is what keeps each book he writes fresh. Authors stuck producing the same type of book over and over can get bored and demotivated, and that eventually shows in their work.

Estleman makes an important point when he recommends that if you intend to write in different genres, you do it quickly from the start of your career, before your publisher pigeonholes you into the first genre you picked. You don’t want your attempts at serious Science Fiction to be labelled “Romance with a futuristic twist” just because the publisher doesn’t want to lose the marketing pull of your name.

Read my review of Writing the Popular Novel

---

Writing the Popular Novel by Loren Estleman is available from Amazon.com