I don’t know, sounds kind of painful.

I’m in the same boat. However, even Brandon admits he isn’t getting a lot of cross-over, ie Alcatraz is selling mostly to a different audience, not so well with his Elantris audience. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It sets up two fairly independent streams of work.

I think one of the best way for a writer NOT to brand him/herself by a series is to do everything in his/her power NOT to write a series one after the other.

I think this is accurate. However, doing that can also affect sales and readership. There have been a few houses in the last few years who have done relatively quick releases in a series, separated only by a few months instead of a year or more. And it seems to have boosted their readership dramatically. Tor is going to try that with Ken Scholes whose LAMENTATION was just released in February. I believe Tor will be trying that with our own Dan Wells too.

For me, if I had to choose between more readers vs. more genres, I’d choose more readers and then deal with the genre problems later. I say this because getting more readers would, hopefully, lead to more $, which would give me more time to spend on writing, which would then allow me time to write the books in the other genres. If I can write one book in 2-4 months that pays the bills for the year, that gives me most of the year to satisfy my need for variety. Of course, that’s my preference. Ultimately, a writer must write from passion, and that may lead to choices that don’t follow tidy marketing programs.

If you had listened to this before in your browser you’ll have to clear your cache. If this is via a download let me know.

http://mbarker.livejournal.com/106569.html

Regarding Brandon Sanderson’s works, I am a crossover reader. After hearing Brandon at LTUE a couple of years ago, I kept an eye out for Elantris and enjoyed reading it when it came out.

Later, I saw the first Alcatraz book at my local library and checked that out. Although I’m an adult, I laughed all the way through this “middle grade” story.

If I like an author, I tend to seek out other works by that author, even if they are in another genre. But then, I also read across a lot of genres in general.

Other than that this is an awesome podcast and really interesting.

I often wonder, am I the only person who listens to this podcast fanatically that isn’t a writer or aspiring writer? I just love listening about this stuff.