signed copy of GUARDIAN OF THE GATE goes to Bookaholic (Jessica)!
REVOLUTION goes to kate at Read This Book!
signed copy of TORMENT goes to Courtneyreads
Congratulations to you all! Please send your mailing addresses to me at d (at) denisejaden (dot) com and I'll get them out in the mail to you as soon as I can.
Now that we have that little bit of business out of the way, I want to have a little chat about changing genres and pseudonyms. Oh, and did I mention that I have three fabulous books up for grabs to go with this discussion?
Back in May, I was fortunate enough to attend the Teen Author Carnival in New York. It was a blast, and among meeting many other amazing authors, I was able to meet squee-worthy Lauren Oliver. Lauren is the author of the highly acclaimed contemporary YA, BEFORE I FALL and a much-anticipated Dystopian YA, DELIRIUM.
I listened to Lauren and many of the authors at the carnival speak on panels, but one thing that Lauren said really stuck with me. Someone in the audience asked about why she had switched genres so early in her career, if it was a purposeful move, or if it was just the way her muse had called her. Lauren's answer surprised me.
She said that she switched to dystopian on purpose, to give herself some elbow room as a writer. Now I've always heard that as a new writer, it's best to stick with books of the same kind of feel/genre to brand yourself and create some expectation and fulfillment in your readers. Granted, with Lauren's blockbuster success and amazing prose, her readers would likely follow her anywhere. And I can understand her not wanting to get pigeonholed into writing books with an obvious formula. But maybe this isn't sound advice for every writer. Or maybe contemporary/dystopian is an easier switch than another genre jump like contemporary/fantasy would be. I don't know, what do you think?
Okay, so you might have guessed, I'm going to give away a copy of both BEFORE I FALL and DELIRIUM (they're both ARC's and I'll admit, neither of them are in pristine condition, but definitely readable).
The other book I'd like to give away (another ARC) is...
LOW RED MOON by Ivy Devlin. The back of this book says, "A powerful YA voice makes her paranormal debut with this breathless, spooky novel--a book to be devoured in one sitting."
Now I'm not sure if the publisher wants the real identity of this author to be made public, but that's not what I want to talk about here anyway. What I want to talk about, is why a pseudonym is used in this case. This is an established YA writer, with, let's say, at least five books of a certain "brand" already out there. I'm curious if you think this would have been the author's decision or the publisher's to publish it under a pseudonym? Was it a legal obligation because of switching publishers? I personally can't imagine having to keep up on two different online presences (two twitter, two blogs, two facebooks). Can you say overwhelming?
So I wonder if you're a writer... at what point would YOU publish under a pseudonym? Would you publish through as many publishers as possible using as many names as you had to in order to get your books out there? Would you do what Lauren Oliver did and try to give yourself some immediate "elbow room" or would you try to create a brand for yourself if you had the choice?
If you're not a writer, but a reader, I wonder what you think of pseudonyms and authors switching genres in general? Do you think the names get leaked in most cases anyway? Do you ever get annoyed when authors switch genres or do you find it refreshing?
Tell me your thoughts in the comments to enter to win the above three books! (I can only mail to you if you're 13 or over and have a Canadian/U.S. mailing address, but I'd love to hear your thoughts regardless!)
