Branding is one of those topics that crops up frequently; you should have a brand say the experts, and the theory goes that sticking to one subgenre is the way to build that brand. I somewhat agree and disagree.
I have a brand, and I’ll tell you what it is. Ready? I’m not really a romance author. In reality, I write fairy tales. All of my romances are fairy tales for grownups. They’re contemporary, paranormal and futuristic respectively, they have snappy dialog and sizzling sex, but they’re all fairy tales underneath.
Exhibit A: Yule Be Mine is a contemporary version of Dicken’s classic tale with a happy ending and takes place when Scrooge (Luke) was young enough to make different choices. Various people and events play the roles of Christmas Past, Present and Future, and Jacob Marlow isn’t dead.
Love and Rockets is an updated version of Cinderella. I thought the wicked stepmother and stepsibs were too melodramatic so I axed them but Anna went to a dance and met her prince. And since it’s the modern version, she didn’t need a fairy godmother, although she did get some help. But she used her brains to reinvent herself and go after the life she really wanted, and lived happily ever after.
Dangerous Games? Futuristic Beauty and the Beast. Drake’s high-tech fortress is the enchanted castle and Melinda breaks the spell of his loneliness and inability to trust which had turned him into a surly beast. But since I always thought the beast was more interesting without turning into a boring ordinary man at the end, Drake doesn’t change too much.
Love Spell? Witches, magic, does it get anymore fairy tale than that? Besides, Mitch is definately a modern prince. And Lucy gets a happy ending because witches deserve them, too. They get such a bum rap in fairy tales.
I didn’t set out to be a fairy tale writer, but that’s my voice. Which is why I’d argue that voice is brand and nobody should worry about subgenre or even what label gets stuck on their book. All my books are clearly my voice.
Also, it shouldn’t surprise anybody that I enjoy writing fairy tales for kids as much as I like writing fairy tales for grownups. I’m now getting around to finding markets for those fairy tales; it’s been a busy year and that got shoved onto the back burner. But Morgan Hawke’s got a great article about success and burnout, and I believe that if I stick to my plan of writing all the fairy tales I want to, I’ll never burn out. I can continue to write fairy tales for adults into my sunset years and I can mix it up endlessly with various subgenres of romance and varying lengths. When I want a break from that, I can slant my fairy tales to a different age group, children or even Young Adults.
Now I just need to find an agent who supports my Evil Plan and won’t try to get me to stick to one length and subgenre or one age group. Don’t try to tell me it’s impossible, I believe in fairy tales and I’ve got some magic apples laying around…
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