This post actually comes courtesy of an experience I had over the weekend that did not involve readers at all. Rather, it involved me interacting with a complete stranger in a way that felt very new, and after some thought, I’ve concluded it’s because I wasn’t subconsciously training this person to react in a certain way. In turn, this got me thinking about audiences and how we, as creators, train them to expect something specific from us. Let’s break it down.
Genres and tropes are expectations. When you market your book as “second-chance, best-friend’s brother romance,” you are telling readers what to expect—a romance book that gives someone a second chance with their best friend’s brother. Thus, readers go into this book expecting a romance novel about someone getting a second chance with their best friend’s brother.
So if you then deliver a sweeping epic fantasy with a chosen one on a hero’s journey…
Or anything other than a story about someone getting a second chance with their best friend’s brother, the deliverable does not match the product you have trained readers to expect by labeling the story a “second-chance, best-friend’s brother romance.”
I will die on the hill that books are all about delivering on the promise. Not delivering on the promise is the quickest way to alienate readers. If you tell them you are giving them something and then do not give them that thing, they get upset. I mean, if you tell anyone you are giving them something (book or otherwise) and then give them something completely different, that causes irritation or at least disconnect.
But this can be applied to more than just a single book. There is a thought among authors that one should start a different pen name for each genre they write in. Doing so signals to their existing audience “this book/series is different.” Whether you believe in the multiple pen names idea or not, the underlying principle is accurate. If the product changes, the expectations need to change with it.
Example, if you go from writing second-chance, best-friend’s brother romance to sweeping chosen-one, hero’s-journey epic fantasy, you wouldn’t slap a romance-ish cover on your fantasy and tell your readers it’s another romance book. You’d get an fantasy-ish cover and label it as fantasy.
Essentially, you would “train” your reader to recognize that this book is not like your other books.
(And “one of these things is not like the others” is now stuck in my head. Lovely.)
Now, this certainly doesn’t mean you must start a new pen name (or otherwise reset expectations) every time you write something that’s a little different. If you have a small-town romance series with the second-chance, best-friend’s brother story, another that’s a rivals-to-lovers story, and a third that’s a forced-proximity story, that’s perfectly fine—just remember to toss your tropes in the description somehow for marketing and such.
If you then decide to write a romance series set around a farming community that uses friends-to-lovers, fake-dating, and grumpy/sunshine tropes, this second series is similar enough to your first series that your existing readers can look at them and think “this is what I expect from this author.”
Heck, if you decide you need a change of scenery and then write a sci-fi romance series set on a space station that’s got a small-town feel, you can still probably make this work so long as you tell your readers it has a futuristic small-town feel. Some might give it a shot. Others might wait for your next series set back on Earth.
But regardless of where your writing interests turn next, set up those expectations. If you have existing readers, tell them how it’s different. Generally speaking, get cover art that speaks to the genre and tropes. Write a description that clearly communicates what the story is about. “Train” potential readers up-front that this book/series is X genre with Y type of storyline.
And for the grumpy (not sunshine) people in the back, I promise you, this is not giving in to the industry or being boxed in by marketing trends. It’s just common sense. If you want someone to find and read your book, they have to be able to find your book so they can read it.
And then once they do, you want them to enjoy it, not feel like they were promised one thing but got another they didn’t want.
👋 Fair travels,
Mary
