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Craft Chat Genre Bonding -from the Society of Independent Authors

Joined
Oct 26, 2021
Location
Wexford, Ireland
LitBits
143
So the idea sounds a bit like Pete's constellations. Good concept.

Hi Pamela Jo,
We've just launched something this week at ALLi Towers that we're very excited about.
We're calling it "genre-bonding". "But what is that?" I hear you ask.

What is genre-bonding?

Simply, get to know the other authors writing in your genre, and work together instead of alone.
Most authors have inherited an idea from trade publishing (a leftover from the old scramble for shelf space and marketing budgets) that the writer next to you in your genre is your rival, and every book they sell is a book you don't.
But indie authors have been quietly doing things differently for decades. It's one of the many things we're proud of about this community.
And it fits how readers actually read. No romance reader has ever finished a novel and declared themselves done with romance. No crime reader closes a book and retires from crime.
Readers are loyal to genre, far more loyal than they are to any single author.
So working with that author instead of around them isn't some clever new tactic; it's something the best indies have already been doing for years, and it creates something powerful when it happens. We're not claiming to have invented it. We're just giving it a name, and a proper home.

Find your genre space

In the ALLi member community hub, we've created a number of genre spaces: each one hosted by a volunteer member who knows that territory inside out, across the three macro genres of Fiction, Poetry and Non-Fiction.
  • Fiction opens into five rooms: Romance, Crime, SF/Fantasy, Literary, and Other.
  • Non-fiction divides into practical and narrative non-fiction.
  • Poetry, so often left out of these conversations entirely, splits into literary and popular verse.
Note: these are just the starting genres - we'll segment further as the need arises.
The rooms are already filling up, which is so exciting to see. Find yours, and you'll find authors ready to swap newsletters, share marketing tactics, and compare notes on what's going on in your genre right now.
It's a great new addition within the community hub that sit alongside the forum, webinars and workshops we already run.
If you'd like to join and find your genre space:
https://www.allianceindependentauthors.org/members/join
Until next time!
Ross
Ross Lynch
Global Community Lead
The Alliance of Independent Authors
 
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