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Once again...

My name is Marie Harte. I write erotic romance. Yes, ROMANCE, and I write in several sub-genres: futuristic, paranormal, fantasy and contemporary. I haven’t hit the historical market yet because I don’t have the patience for that depth of research. But someday I might.

As a reader, I like certain authors because of their style. But when I look to read their books, I don’t much mind the genre they write about. I used to read Johanna Lindsey a lot. She wrote historicals in several settings. Kay Hooper wrote romances that turned into suspenseful romances before suspense was the “in” thing. So long as these authors keep the romantic aspect of the book at the forefront, I don’t much care what the story is, so long as it’s a good one.

But for years I was told by many in my old RWA group and through the loops, to use one name to write one kind of book, and another for a different genre. Marie Harte, then, could not write paranormals AND contemporaries, which would mean breaking up a potential fan base of readers who wouldn’t know it was Marie Harte writing both kinds of books.

I think those rules applied more to NY style print authors than the electronic world of publishing, because during my time in epubbing, none of the “rules” apply. Authors write in any genre they want using the same name. And I dig that. I like knowing that an Evangeline Anderson or Annmarie McKenna book is there for me to read, no matter the genre.

I used to write futuristics almost exclusively. Then I branched into paranormals. But both genres seem more in tune with one another, so the leap isn’t so far. After writing in these genres for a while, I had a bug to write something different. I published Fit To Be Tied with the now defunct Venus Press. The book did well, was on VP’s bestseller list a few months. And then VP went under.

I liked the book and wanted to branch to other publishers, so I looked up Loose Id. They agreed to take Fit To Be Tied if I’d write another brand new story for them. I did. Fit To Be Tied became Tied and True, revised and revamped and retitled. I followed that with Reaper’s Reward—still a personal favorite. But I figured I’d skirted the name/genre issue by subbing my contemporaries to one publisher, and my paranormal and futuristics to another. The name was the same, but the content at each house similar enough not to confuse anyone.

I broke my own “rules” when I wrote Enjoying the Show. I’d initially written it as a 12K word contemporary short for an Elloras Cave Caveman anthology hopeful. To my confused dismay, they rejected me. Ack. Not to be outdone and because I believed it was a good story, I resubmitted to Samhain, a new publisher with a great reputation (this was back in 2006). Lo and behold, they rejected me too! But Laurie, my editor, gave me sound advice.

No longer under a word constraint, I followed her counsel and expanded and revised my story. Now at twice its length and much tighter, the story took on new life. I resubmitted it and they took it! The book came out a year later. But in the meantime, I took advantage of Samhain’s special projects through the year. The summer of 2007 saw my first book with them, a futuristic entitled A Scorching Seduction. I followed that in Sept 2007 with a paranormal called The Dragons’ Demon. Enjoying the Show came out in December, and is my bestseller to date. And today, I have another paranormal releasing from Samhain. Rachel’s Totem, a feline shifter story as part of their cat shifter storyline.

So it seems to me that as long as it’s a good story, genre doesn’t matter. For the foreseeable future, Marie Harte is here to stay.

Marie