I never considered writing Genre most of my life, partly because I’ve always seen myself as speaking to an obscure group of readers something like myself. Genre requires having a common world-view and behavioral patterns as the majority, and I don’t necessarily fit in with a political party, religion, or any other group as I’m an independent thinker.
Then, I realized I don’t ultimately feel that much in common with Literary readers particularly, either when it comes to worldview and our interpretation of “the news.” I decided a good method was to write Genre which would be considered by large numbers of people, and within those numbers would be its niche. Someone would be like my books and be interested in topics such as social engineering by duping the public through propaganda.
Ironic, just the opposite of my original plan. I saved my most controversial and hard hitting material that speaks of real world issues that divide people for the Genre books. There aren’t many people to chose from in the entire Literary set compared to the fraction in the huge Genre readership who would ideally be open to these challenging ideas in books that require thinking.
The key is to get the books in front of large numbers of people without resorting to the tactics so many best selling authors do. Yes, I know what they’re up to, those rascals. They not only spend a lot of money legitimately, they spend a lot to have huge numbers of people buy their books. They buy “likes” from fake accounts. They buy reviews and pay people to write negative reviews of their competitors.
This is a daunting challenge, though I’ve studied the marketing methods in depth. The first book might take some time to take off; we’ll see. That slowness can sometimes tank a whole series. But at least I will have produced the series which I believe is a major work, after working up to it with my more minor works my entire life. I will have achieved my gift to humanity, there for the taking if people find it and want it. I hope they do.
It’s sweet to feel the embrace of the Literary crowd. In the day since I posted my announcement on Facebook about being nominated for a Pushcart (my seventh, I think) I have 150 “likes.” But I’ll be stepping out of that loving crowd and into the huge world of strangers the end of January with my first full length Genre work. I have plenty of Genre short stories in magazines and anthologies, but this will be like going naked on a stage the whole world can see.
All I can do is take a deep breath and love.
Tantra Bensko's Genre Fiction 