Saturday 25 February 2012

Edge of Dreams: Reviews & Marketing

Today my YA fantasy novel Edge of Dreams is featured over on Books4Tomorrow with an excellent 5* review.

I don't promote my fantasy writing as much as my thriller. I'm not sure why. My roots are firmly in fantasy - as a reader, writer, convention-goer and convention-organiser of many year's standing. I know a fair few people in the fantasy genre - writers, artists and industry people. And yet I don't give this novel the airtime it deserves, which is a shame as it has been nearly-traditionally-published a couple of times, getting to acquisitions meetings before a thumbs-down from the people holding the purse-strings.

Maybe it's because my markets are so different. My thriller is strictly adults-only, but this is aimed at a YA market. I'm not sure how to straddle two different genres which are poles apart in readership and content. I can't say with confidence that a reader of one book will love - or even like - the other.

So here it is anyway. Please go read my review. I don't have many of them.

5 comments:

Rick said...

I'm going to head over and take a look. I'm a thriller fan myself.

Rick said...

One more thing- if you have any mystery or suspense stories, you might submit them over to us at White Cat Magazine. Chuck and I would be interested in getting a look at them.

mark williams international said...

We've pondered the same dilemma, Debbie.

We're just about to launch our YA and children's books, which are a world apart from our very adult thrillers. We considered using a different name but decided that in the new epub world that's not necessary.

Our brand is "writer", not "genre".

Readers are sensible enough to work out for themselves what they're buying, and so long as genre guidelines are clear I think the idea of the parents' favourite author also being a favourite of their kids will be a selling point.

Debbie Bennett said...

@Mark. Which works fine until the kids want to read more books by the same author and dad has one on his kindle and it's a thriller involving rape and gay sex ... I know teens grow up quickly these days (and a work colleague who's read my sex-and-drugs thriller said he would let his 15 year-old read it), but I'm just not comfortable with the idea.

Debbie Bennett said...

@Rick. How do you feel about reprints? I have a flash fiction piece that was published last August online, but never been in print.