Follow me?

Do you follow your favorite authors? I don't just mean if they go from category romance to romantic suspense or historical to paranormal romance.... I mean, if they leave the genre altogether?

This topics seems to be popping up a lot lately. I remember reading a letter in the RT mag from a reader who seemed pretty miffed because her favorite historical author had gone on to suspense.

I know I hate when my favorite author can't/don't/won't write any more in one particular genre. I've been waiting forever, it seems, to read another book like Nightseer, written by LKH. She originally planned on it being a series, but the first one didn't sell enough for the publisher to pick it up. A couple of other authors had to let series die out because sales didn't justify the publisher picking up another book.

If an author wants to keep getting contracts, she might have to change to fit into the current market. It sucks sometimes, but hey...if the books don't sell, we don't get paid. Plus, I know that I get bored writing a certain genre for too long. It's one of the reasons I bounce around.

I've written...

elves
light bondage
vampires
psychics
doctors who fell in love with the man believed to have killed her brother
half breed vampires
shapeshifters
witches
reincarnated witches
mutants
gypsies
swordsman
incubi
cops
mobsters
vigilantes
werewolves
ghosts
bored, arrogant businessmen
dragons
satyrs
fallen angels
redeemed demons

I think I got most of them. But you see what I mean? I can't just write one thing. Although I do like writing vampires, if I just write vampires, my brain gets bored. I can't focus. I can't get into the story. I can't love my characters. If I can't love my characters, how can I expect readers to love them?

Plain and simple fact. A writer has to love what she's writing. I can't necessarily say that she has to think her story is the most amazing thing ever written (that's arrogant and I think most of my stories aren't that great) but I do love the genres I write in. I get into them. That's how to get a reader to get into them. Because that is the kind of story that will suck them into it, one that's written from the heart.

I can't speak for other writers, but I do have to wonder if one of the reasons some authors leave a certain genre is because of this. They get bored. They have to try something new. It's good for them. And in the long run, I think it's good for readers too. Even if they don't like the new road the author chose to go down. It might save them from a buying a book that the author didn't put her heart and soul into. That's when the author lets the reader down, when she forces herself to write a book she doesn't really care to write.

But back to my original question... do you follow your authors? There are a few I'll follow even if they decide to start writing westerns. Westerns bore the hell out of me... unless its written by Lora Leigh, Nan Ryan or Cheyenne McCray.

What about you?