What Immortal Hand ARCs are afloat

I’ve sent out the ARCs for my new book, WHAT IMMORTAL HAND for reviews, and of course I’m collecting blurbs from other author friends of mine, and acquaintances and a couple flat out shots i the dark of people I like. So far so good.

So far so good.

But I am worried.

WHAT IMMORTAL HAND is dark. It’s a horror—adult and literary, but still a horror. The ideas and directions and content is adult and meant to be challenging if not troubling. All this is well and good and I know all my Horror Writing friends are down with this, but, let’s be honest: most of my fans know me (so far) from my young series, THE UNSEEN—ELEANOR, CELESTE and DAVID. Though there’s some darkness in those books, it’s nothing like HAND.

Granted I have fans of BEATRYSEL and they’ll be down with it, but in offering ARCs to so many of my fans, I know I’ll hit a few who’ll be shocked by my book. Will I lose a reader? A fan? A friend?

Coming September

This is the worry of all multiple genre authors. It’s why writers use pen-names for their different projects: Stephen King, Richard Bachman; JK Rowling, Robert Galbraith. I thought hard about having several pen names, but to be honest, when I started I was too lazy to do the double marketing required for two names. Since I’m now firmly entrenched in at least four genres, I think I made the right decision for me, but possibly not for my career.

Editors and publishers don’t like the multiple genre thing much either. It makes it harder to sell. My fans are spread out, hardcore horror buffs, sensitive YA readers, adult mystery buffs. As with the worry I have about WHAT IMMORTAL HAND, publishers can’t rely on fans of one of my books following me to another. So each books has to stand on its own and that’s kind of working against the momentum and fan base I have gone.

But the ship has sailed (to take a quote from WHAT IMMORTAL HAND). I can do nothing about it now but worry. I write what I do because I need to write it. “I write what I want to read, that guarantees me at least one fan,” is still my mantra, but let’s face it, I’m not alone in this. I like my readers and want them to like me.

I'm consoled in the knowledge that my fans are smart (they like me after all) and also by the strange idea—which most modern media outlets can't imagine—that readers like a little variety. People have favorites but there's room for good writing in any reader's collection.

That's my story anyway, and I'm sticking with it.

In any event, it's out of my hands now. All I can do is worry.