Hi! waves to all the nice people What was that? The title of this post makes no sense? Ah. Stay with me here. I can’t promise to make sense, but I will explain. (Giveaway spoiler: And if you do stay with me, you get a chance to pick from my menu “) )
See, a writer and his or her body of work in the beginning is like a mom-and-pop restaurant. We’ll call it Aunt Bee’s. Aunt Bee starts out making one fabulous thing in her kitchen, her incredible chicken and dumplings. People ask for them all the time. Eventually, she starts to sell them from her house. It occurs to Aunt Bee that maybe she can make a second thing people might like, so she starts selling her pulled pork sandwiches, too. When enough people are buying Aunt Bee’s chicken and dumplings and pulled pork, she decides to open a restaurant. The menu expands.
Writers’ careers aren’t much different. We start out with one product to offer, which we might shop around until someone picks it up, or we might have a homegrown following that encourages a buyer. If readers like the first product, they ask for another. If the writer’s lucky, they want more. If we work diligently and persistently, we eventually have menus full of options for the lovely readers who stop by our word restaurants.
Some writers, like J. K. Rowling, started out as pizzerias. The really good kind that has goat cheese, feta, and fresh mozzarella, that offers lovely vegetarian options as well as meat lovers’ wet dreams. But still a pizzeria – the menu offers a series of one type of product. Lately, she’s decided to add chicken and fish to her menu. I’m not sure that’s the best idea, but time will tell.
Other writers, like Tanya Huff, develop into more of a specialty restaurant, say Asian-Fusion or upscale Italian. You know the type of food offered. You walk in there knowing what kinds of selections will be on hand. But it’s a nice, thick menu with lots of pages and a wide variety of choices.
Then you have the full service diner writers, the ones who want to offer you a bit of everything—chicken pot pie? Got that. Gyros? Got those. Steak and potatoes? Yep. Lemon meringue pie? Oh, heck yes. Sometimes everything works and all the readers leave feeling full and happy. Sometimes it’s not such a good idea and while the tuna melt was fabulous, the crab cake sandwich was a little nauseating.
We can see where a writer is in his or her career by where they are in the restaurant metaphor. Are they at the stage where they only have that one product, that lone novel? Do they have a nice little starter menu with a few solid items? Or are they at the point where you’ll be handed the faux-leather bound menu with the twenty pages of offerings?
Appetizers = Short stories
Primo/ Soups and Salad = Novellas
Main course = Novels (If it’s a series, you may be offered several courses.)
Dessert = Free Reads and extra material
My restaurant? Definitely a specialty restaurant. You’ll find a full menu but it’s all of the M/M Science Fiction and Fantasy persuasion. I do a lot of fusion cuisine—Science Fiction Humor, Contemporary Fairytale, Urban Fantasy, Science Fiction Fairytale—but it’s all in the same family of literary food.
Do all my readers leave full and happy? I can’t say I please everyone, but people do seem to keep coming back.
THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED
Hoping to see everyone soon at GRL—I’ll be the little person with the long, scraggly white hair and the watchful expression that people misinterpret as deep thought. I’m really just trying to figure out what’s going on.
Angel Martinez: Erotic Fiction for the Hungry Mind – go here to browse the menu
About Angel: Angel Martinez is that rare breed—a Delaware author. (“Look, Mommy! It’s so cute! Can we feed it?” “No, dear. I hear they bite.”) Her books currently live at Amber Allure, Total E Bound, Mischief Corner Books and Silver Publishing.
Need to contact Angel to leave a note, backhanded compliment or smart remark? Try one of these:
Facebook Author Page
Goodreads
Twitter
The link to Ms. Martinez’s website isn’t currently working just to let you know. I would choose Finn from your menu. Love the analogy too!
EEP! Thanks for letting me know, Allison! It should be fixed now. :-D
:)
The old website has died – please use the new Weebly one: http://angelmartinezauthor.weebly.com/news-and-the-work.html
Oh, ha! That one doesn’t work either, Angel. Click on my link in the post and see if I got the right one. :)
Hard to say since I’m at the EDJ and it blocks me from my own site :( The plain old one – without any extra bits – should work: http://angelmartinezauthor.weebly.com/
Love the whole writer/restaurant analogy!
Thank you, Michael! (You can tell I like food, huh?)
LOL – yep! I love food too so it’s all good : )
All I have to say to this: :My restaurant? Definitely a specialty restaurant. You’ll find a full menu but it’s all of the M/M Science Fiction and Fantasy persuasion.” is thank you so much Angel. This is my very favourite type of restaurant and your meals are some of the most delicious, mouth-wateringly excellent meals I have ever eaten. ;-) I have partaken of all of them so far so now I’ll be looking forward to all the new delicacies forthcoming!
Kat
kalimar2010 @ gmail.com
*hugs* Thank you, Kat! And there are fun things on the horizon! :)
Gravitational Attraction would be my choice. Thanks for an interesting post!
Thank you for stopping in, Antonia! GA is one of my personal favorites :D
Loved this post. Whatever you do, Angel, keep sending out your delightful literary servings.
*hugs* Thank you, David! Doing the best I can ;)
My husband has always said I devour books so your restaurant analogy was very apt for me :D
Wild Rose, Silent Snow & Gravitational Attraction sound good and I can’t decide which sems best. Guess I’ll make the decision if I should be lucky enough to win ;)
Both lovely choices – the chef recommends them :D I’m a book devourer, too – though I’m sad not to have as much time for reading these days.
Enjoyable fun post on menu offerings and authors. Gravitational Attraction would be my choice off of your delicious menu. Thanks for the giveaway!
Thanks for stopping in, JJ!
I love your books Angel. I love sci-fi, so I think it’s great that you write so many sci-fi/fantasy books. And who knows, maybe we’ll get a sequel to Vassily one day (*hint, hint*). Thanks for stopping by Angel, loved the post!
tiger-chick-1(at)hotmail(dot)com
Thank you, Tiger Chick! So nice to hear :) I do want to do a Vassily sequel – which is sitting on my precariously teetering tower of sequel to-do’s. Um. Yes. Where is that time turner when you need one?
Books and food. My favorites. Sigh. And Angel Martinez….a smorgasbord of some of my very favorite stories…er…dishes. :) Enjoyed your post!
And movies! :D Thank you for stopping in, Vastine! *hugs*
Fun analogy that makes a lot of sense! I’d pick BOOTS today…
Thanks so much to everyone who stopped by, including Angel!, to say hi and enter the contest. It’s now closed and the winner is…
Trix!
Congratulations, Trix. I’m emailing Angel with your contact information now, so expect to be hearing from her soon. :)