Keeping Up With The Audience

My superpower is also my kryptonite.

As a writer, my superpower is — not surprisingly — creativity. For me, this means more than content creation. It also involves learning, growing and evolving through the exploration and application of creativity.

So far, so good.

Here’s where the kryptonite appears. Let’s say I write a cozy mystery, steampunk series set in Victorian Nairobi. (The series is as fun as it sounds.) And I follow up that series with a couple of tangentially-related cozy mystery series which are also set in Kenya.

It shouldn’t come as a shock to learn that I now have an audience of cozy mystery readers. Because of course that’s what happens when you write more than twenty books in one genre. Such a result is not only desirable, but expected. It would be peculiar if after writing so many cozies, I’d built up an audience of alien erotica fans instead.

Conventional wisdom and commercial sensibilities would suggest I write more cozy mysteries to keep up with my current audience’s reading preferences, and to attract more readers to a growing catalogue of delightful, quirky mysteries.

Except… Remember that kryptonite I mentioned earlier?

My superpower / kryptonite duo — my need to learn, grow and evolve — impacts not just how much I create, but what I create. In a nutshell: I get bored, fast.

After 20+ cozy mysteries, I genre-jumped. In addition to all those cozies, I’ve now also written romcoms, sci-fi, literary fiction, graphic novels and middle school superheroes. I’ve even dabbled in nonfiction: regenerative agriculture, stress management, and personal growth.

The result? Lots of learning and evolving for me; but a bit (or a lot) of confusion for my readers. People who loved my cozy mysteries naturally expected me to keep writing more of them. And I naturally did the opposite. 

Few readers can make the jarring transition between so many different genres. My story catalogue is literally a genre nightmare, and commercially a dumpster fire.

After much angst and soul-searching, I’ve decided I’m okay with this. My priorities are to learn and evolve, and help others do the same. Although commercial success would be lovely, it’s not my “why”. If it happens, it will be a byproduct. And that’s something both my superpower and my kryptonite can agree on.

What’s your Superpower / Kryptonite Duo?

Feel free to visit my genre-bending catalogue!