Genre Hopping - Should You Do It?

John Grisham does it. So do Tess Gerritsen and Orson Scott Card. What is it? Quite simply, genre hopping is when one author writes books in more than one genre.

When is it okay to genre hop?

Rumor has it that genre hopping is frowned upon in the publishing industry. This is not the case. In fact, there are two times in your career when genre hopping is encouraged.

• One: Before you ever get published

According to the brilliant Ms. Jessica Faust of Bookends, “Part of the publishing process involves discovery—discovering your voice, which genres suit your voice best, and which genres you really have a passion for—and until you get that magic publishing contract in hand, there’s no one out there telling you what you can or cannot do. For the unpublished, you should use this point in your career as a time of exploration and growth. And you should have fun with it.”

• Two: After you have successfully published multiple books in one genre

For an explanation, I’ll defer to the ever-popular Mr. Nathan Bransford: “Here's the best method: first you become hugely successful. It's really, really hard to break out in one genre. It takes mountains of time, effort, luck, perseverance, luck, effort, perseverance... time... The kings of genre fiction have worked for years to steadily build an audience (and a brand) within the same genre. You make it even harder for yourself when you splinter your time, attention, learning curve, and, eventually, your audience by jumping around to different genres. Genre hopping should really only be undertaken in close consultation with your agent and after a lot of soul searching.”

Are there exceptions?

Absolutely! The most notable being Children’s Literature. Of all audiences, this is the one with the most wiggle room. Take author Cynthia Jaynes Omolou, who writes picture books, YA, and everything in between.

I have this talk with my agent all the time, and her answer is "write what you love." -Cynthia Jaynes Omolou

Annnnnd if you want to get really sneaky…

You can use a pen name to write (and submit!) in more than one genre. I’ll talk about this more when I discuss pen names next week here on the blog. So be sure to leave me any questions/comments about your experiences with pen names so I can cover all the bases!

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