Lets say you publish Sci-fi.... but then want to get a general fiction or a YA published. Or you get Romance published but write a Western that you also want published. Do you go to multiple publishers? Do you invent a pen-name and publish the other genre under that one? How do you market them? (I recently started working at a library and found that some authors publish their work in other genres under a different name. I was wondering if they do this because its hard to "jump genres")
Because your reader base will have certain expectations of your content and style, I guess similar to how actors get typecast. Look at Robert Galbraith It probably is hard to jump genres, I imagine.
You're essentially starting over when you jump genres, so... if you found it hard to break in to the first genre, you'll probably find it just as hard to break in to the second. The same agent may represent you for both, but she may not. It depends on her contacts and interests, and also on your goals and strategies. Self-publishing obviously has different challenges, but again, it'll be very much like starting over. All the work you did to establish a name in your first genre will have to be done again for the new genre. I suppose there are some genres that are so similar to each other that there's some overlap in the readership, and some authors that are such big names that the transition isn't too difficult for them, but I'd say both of these cases are the exception rather than the rule.
Yes, and especially look at how the sales numbers rocketed after it was revealed to be a pen-name for another mega-selling author Jumping genres is not difficult, if you are a good author you'll always find an audience.
I would have thought Galbraith/Rowling would be an example how it is difficult. Why should sales skyrocket only after it's been revealed to be Harry Potter's author? The jump in sales had nothing to do with her quality as an author (not saying she's a bad author, but these are unrelated things). The sales increase happened because she is hugely famous with an extensive fan base, which is what made the genre jump possible. It would make the point of it not being difficult much better if sales were only slightly affected by the reveal. Mind you, I'm interpreting this to mean "Is it difficult for the author to break into the market?" As opposed to, "Is it difficult for the author to write in two different genres?" Because if the point was: Look at the sales figure for Robert Galbraith before anyone knew he was supposed to be JK Rowling and see how he sold pretty well as an "unknown" author, therefore proving that Rowling could write in both the crime and fantasy genres with ease, then I can agree with you. But for breaking into the market, if anything, her example shows it's difficult, I think.
