What do you want?

This was not the original direction that I was going to go with this post, but I think it might be time to get back to the start of SPE and those very first frightening steps as a new indie author. Go back to the very reason you wanted to become an author. For me it was the want to share my stories with everyone. (Well that was the realistic one....the others were just fantasies.) Do you want this as a hobby? Do you want this to be your career? Pocket change? Make a living? We all go in this entertaining fantasies of becoming famous, making 100k+ a year on just our writing, but that doesn't happen to everyone and rarely does it happen without a lot of hard work.

Have I broken your spirits yet? No? Good.

Writing is my passion and I would do it with or without publishing. It's something I cannot not do. It's in my soul and I'm pretty sure my head would explode if I didn't write. It's how I deal with stress, it's how I cope with depression, and it's part of my life. I knew when I started this I wanted to make a living off my writing. When I first pressed published on Amazon, I had NO idea how much work was included in this.

I know authors who made a living by their third book. I always felt that I was far behind because of that. Then I realized that they had other funds to dedicate to this, dropping $300 on ads wasn't an issue for them. I have a minimal budge and though I've come a long way in two years, I'm not where they are. It's a slow climb and I'm okay with that. I'm only 27 and I have time to get where I want to go. I'm lucky enough that I work from home, so I'm able to work on writing throughout the day and at night. I treat it as another job. Why? Because if I didn't, I'd never get things done and published.

I mentioned marketing. This goes back to what do you want from your writing? I know people who publish on amazon for the simple reason of being able to say "I am published." I know others who publish and want to "hit it big." It goes back to hobby or career? It's a passion, yes, but what do you want to do with it? Where do you want it to take you? Just a hobby? Okay, don't worry about marketing. Career? You better start working on marketing, contacting people for reviews, figuring out how to run contest. Oh and write another book. This is a number game, having just one book won't cut it.

Indie-publishing is an uphill battle. Before you hit that publish button, ask yourself....what do you want from your writing? Think about it. Write down those goals....and then get to work.

New Genre Territory

Keeping your brand clean is important. Not clean as in "squeaky clean, nothing dirty" but clean as in "clearly defined" Authors with successful brands stick to their genre and don't confuse their readers by venturing too far out in a different direction. If I had a huge following of fans for my paranormal romance switching my next book to a western suspense novel might throw some of them for a loop. Yet when some genres fall closely together, yet are totally different what do you do?

A)    Hope your fan base follows you along on this new adventure.

B)    Create a new brand for this new side project.

 There really is no C option. Those are your choices, take it or leave it. So I guess in a way there is a C option, it's called just don't do it. I am considering publishing some stories under a totally different genre and because of that, if I do it, I will do so under a pen name. But I have another dilemma, even though I am an indie author I also have been picked up with Ellora's Cave, and I do enjoy writing submissions for smaller anthologies. But those anthology submissions don't always fall into the paranormal romance/paranormal erotic genre. So the question becomes, what do I do? Do I still write outside my genre if it is only for smaller anthologies? Do I just say screw it and write what I want without worrying about my brand I am trying to build?

Right now I have no answers for myself. I do know if I go too far off my path it would require reconfiguring my brand, I think for now dabbling in the shallow end with small submissions might be okay. It's a question of branding vs. getting my name out there for people to take notice. And this early in the game, getting my name out there might be the more important piece of the puzzle.

How do you feel about authors jumping from different genres under the same name? Would you prefer they stuck to one genre and used a separate name to write something completely different? Let us know.