A major problem I've encountered with my books is that they are all quite different from each other, so each that each one has a potential audience of its own in addition to the readers who happen to like them all -- and it's hard to get them into the hands of those separate audiences.

The first of my books to be published was Enchantress from the Stars. I wasn't at all sure that it would be marketable because it was longer than most books for teens published at that time, and in many ways different. So I was somewhat surprised by its success, and completely astonished when it was chosen as a Newbery Honor Book. Of course, I was delighted. Yet at the same time, its Newbery Honor status causes the book to be given to younger readers than it was intended for. Teachers sometimes present it to the 5th and 6th grade, though only the most advanced kids of that age really understand the story. This is okay -- those who like it can read it again when they are older! What isn't okay is that the older readers who might get more out of it often pass it up because it's labeled as a children's book. It was never meant for children, unless you consider teenagers "children," which personally I don't.

On the other hand, many young people of all ages do enjoy it, and so do many adults. And these readers tend to expect that my other books will have the same sort of appeal -- they want me to write another book like Enchantress. How I wish I could! If I had an idea for another book like Enchantress I would have written it long ago (and if I ever get such an idea in the future, I surely will write it). But in the meantime, I have written other kinds of novels. Some people, especially those drawn to the parts of Enchantress that are told in the style of fantasy, don't like them as well, and it's fine for different people to have different favorites. But there are other people who like them better, and more such readers would discover them if it weren't that those who didn't like the fantasy style of Enchantress also assume that everything I've written will be similar.

In the publishing world, authors get "typed." This is not accidental, because marketing departments encourage it; it's an asset to sales. Ideally, from the sales standpoint, an author is supposed to build an audience and keep on writing what that audience expects. In the case of adult fiction, an author who wants to write novels in more than one genre sometimes has to use a different pen name in each. As I mentioned last week, there is less genre separation in the field of fiction for young people. Still, if a book is successful, publishers naturally promote subsequent books as if they were more of the same. Thus The Far Side of Evil was originally called a sequel to Enchantress from the Stars, although it's a completely separate story meant for older teens and is inappropriate for children. This was my fault because it has the same heroine, something I've since regretted -- I wrote it before Enchantress appeared and was too inexperienced then to foresee the problem it would cause. I didn't realize that Enchantress would be given to so many readers below teenage, or that most teens would avoid a book they associated with one that was viewed as children's fantasy. I managed to ensure that the word "sequel" was not used on the new edition, but old references still list it that way, and the new hardcover was labeled a "companion book," which was just as damaging in terms of its failure to reach new teen readers. I can only hope they are discovering the paperback.

Journey Between Worlds, as I explained last week, is intended for still another audience: girls who like realistic romance. Its original edition's publicity didn't make plain that it's intentionally unlike Enchantress and will appeal to different readers; consequently it wasn't found by many of them. I trust the new edition will be.

The trilogy Children of the Star is best liked by high school age readers and adults; its new edition was issued as adult science fiction. It has always "fallen through the crack" between YA and adult novels and for that reason, despite many devoted longtime fans, it hasn't reached a wide audience. I'll go into that situation another time!

If I had the ability to think up stories at will, I would write more novels for each of my distinct groups of readers. I'd certainly please more of them, and sell more books, if I could do that. But it is not a matter of choice -- I can write only the stories that come into my mind, and hope that each will be judged on its own, rather than in comparison to the others.

The updated edition of Journey Between Worlds was published last week, and I'm really excited about the publicity it has been getting. The original (1970) edition was enjoyed by girls who were interested in space and science fiction, but it didn't reach many of the other readers for whom I intended it -- those who didn't start out with an interest in space. My aim was to arouse that interest!  I believe that what new generations think about the expansion of humankind beyond one small planet is vitally important to the future, so I hope to counteract the all-too-common idea that space matters only to astronauts and scientists. Journey Between Worlds is about an ordinary girl who finds that Mars is not as different from Earth as she thought it would be -- people are pretty much the same everywhere, and if you fall in love, where you're living is not the most important thing on your mind.
 

But in libraries, the original edition of the book was usually placed on the YA science fiction shelf, where girls interested in love stories rarely found it. This edition is getting reviews at romance websites, which should attract a much larger audience. Librarians, please shelve it with teen romance!  After all, it is unlikely to appeal to the kind of science fiction fan who wants fast action/adventure or weird aliens, and the girls who like other types of science fiction will probably be looking for romances, too.

The whole issue of genre labeling is something that has always bothered me.  I do not see why every novel that happens to be set on another planet has to be marked "science fiction" and viewed as something apart from other fiction. (Well, I do see why -- it's for marketing reasons -- but I don't like it.) One reason I chose to write for teens was that this separation is less firm in the YA publishing field than in adult publishing; the same editors handle all teen fiction regardless of its setting. All my novels are enjoyed by people (both teens and adults) who don't usually read science fiction, as well as by those who do; I often hear from such people. And I should add that my goal is not to "turn them on to SF," with the idea that they should "progress" to more esoteric books, as some science fiction fans assume.

In my opinion, good fiction should appeal to as wide a range of readers as possible. And if it is good, it should not matter if the story takes place in today's world, a past era, a future era, or a wholly imaginary fantasy world, any more than it should make a difference whether the characters look and act just like people of our own culture.  The feelings of the characters, their reactions to their experiences, are what count. Certainly many readers prefer some settings over others, but this is a choice for them to make, not some rigid system of commercial categorization that artificially narrows the choices offered to them.

I hope that Journey Between Worlds will be read not only by Mars enthusiasts, but by people who may not have thought much about the future before -- and that it will encourage them to view it hopefully.