For a long time I’ve thought about trying my hand at writing YA dystopian novels. It’s a genre I really enjoy and I have a ton of creepy ideas for them. I hadn’t pursued it because I felt like I’d need to create ANOTHER identity. And really, there are only so many separate brands I can maintain. It gets difficult, especially when you are building brands and not having crossover/cross-pollination. But for some reason there seem to be a lot of paranormal romance readers who also read YA dystopian. I have no idea why this is. And I fit into that camp as well. I enjoy reading both genres.
So I thought I didn’t really want to create a whole other identity somewhere, just a slight branding distinction. Like if I’m going to write both genres, I don’t want someone to pick up a PNR from me expecting YA dystopian or vice versa. But since there is a lot of crossover potential, as long as it’s easy to tell which is which at a glance, there should be no problem with keeping it all in the family so to speak.
I set up a Facebook fan page for Z Winters. Yes, that’s my sad little fan page with nothing on it.
On Twitter, I am Z_Winters (Don’t forget the underscore.)
And I also purchased Zwinters.com and Zwinters.net
So I’m ready to roll with that when I get ready to. Please note, I am NOT changing my name. I am simply adding a new brand identity. Zoe Winters will still be there and she will continue to write paranormal romance. (No, that didn’t sound schizophrenic at all!) Z Winters will write YA dystopians. I will be cross-promoting the names also.
Those who are waiting for more Pretverse, don’t worry. I am not writing my dystopian until I get Dark Mercy (the novella/novelette coming in November), The Catalyst (tentative title for book 3) and LifeCycle (book 4), out the door to you. I just have this awesome idea that’s been percolating and really want to write it. And even though there are some dystopian type themes in Pretverse which will be expanded upon, this particular idea won’t work in that world and doesn’t fit a paranormal structure.
I’m not sure how many dystopians I’m going to write. I’ll probably publish them less frequently unless I just get on a tear with ideas. But by keeping the pen names so closely linked together, I feel like it will be less stressful/overwhelming trying to build a totally separate brand with a totally new readership because I anticipate a lot of the Zoe Winters readers will also read Z and vice versa.
And that’s all I have to say about that. 
This is a reprint from Zoe Winters‘ weblog.