I've had some short fiction published, and one even paid me $10 (which I used to buy the best tasting latte I ever had, because it was purchased with my writing money) It was all fantasy or mainstream horror.
Thing is...I also have some more extreme horror shorts that I've published in indie presses and I've got a self-published series of novellas that I want to get out this year which are also indie horror. Basically, they are in the same vein as some books in the "basement of Amazon," as I call it.
I also have an urban fantasy novel which is mainstream, and I'm working on a literary fiction novel about a teenager learning to stop enabling his drunken (but loving) man-child of a single father, which I'm surprised to see everyone I've showed it to likes as I'm usually a "genre-only" fellow.
Anyway, I would like to submit either my urban fantasy or the literary fiction novel to agents at some point. I'm just afraid that they might google my name and find the "basement of Amazon" stuff and say "ahh, thanks but no thanks" before they call the FBI to see if I have a crawlspace under my house that needs to be examined.
Would it pay to use a penname for this purpose, or is it okay as long as I don't mention some of the more extreme stuff in the query?
I'm just so afraid I'm going to be pigeonholed as an "indie horror writer" only and never get any traction with anything else...kinda how Wes Craven never got to do nearly as many romances as he wanted to because he was known as a "horror guy."
Thing is...I also have some more extreme horror shorts that I've published in indie presses and I've got a self-published series of novellas that I want to get out this year which are also indie horror. Basically, they are in the same vein as some books in the "basement of Amazon," as I call it.
I also have an urban fantasy novel which is mainstream, and I'm working on a literary fiction novel about a teenager learning to stop enabling his drunken (but loving) man-child of a single father, which I'm surprised to see everyone I've showed it to likes as I'm usually a "genre-only" fellow.
Anyway, I would like to submit either my urban fantasy or the literary fiction novel to agents at some point. I'm just afraid that they might google my name and find the "basement of Amazon" stuff and say "ahh, thanks but no thanks" before they call the FBI to see if I have a crawlspace under my house that needs to be examined.
Would it pay to use a penname for this purpose, or is it okay as long as I don't mention some of the more extreme stuff in the query?
I'm just so afraid I'm going to be pigeonholed as an "indie horror writer" only and never get any traction with anything else...kinda how Wes Craven never got to do nearly as many romances as he wanted to because he was known as a "horror guy."
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