Hi —

As you might have noticed, i just unveiled the cover for the re-release of my popular novel SPELL CAT. Spell Cat is the first in a series of three paranormal romances i call The Aloysius Tales. They all concern witches in modern New York. I also wrote three werewolf books as part of Tales of the Harker Pack. Collectively, these books are my only paranormal romances. Mostly, I write contemporary.

Which do you prefer? Any time i ask my readers, including my Street Team, a large number of people will ask for paranormal, although they say they’ll happily read any of my books. If i look on All Romance eBooks, it always appears that paranormal romances are the bestsellers overall.

BUT ask virtually any author and they’ll tell you that contemporary romances sell best. Statistics show that contemporary romance is the top subgenre of romance by a substantial margin and contemporary romances always seem to see best on Amazon. I write more contemporary because, while many fans ask for paranormal, in the long run, more people actually read my contemporaries. Of the Top 10 most reviewed and rated Tara Lain books on Goodreads, 7 are contemporary. If i ask my main publisher, they’ll always say that contemporary sells the best.

So how to explain the dichotomy? Maybe paranormal fans are just more active, more vocal, more enthusiastic? Maybe because there are fewer of them, they stand out more?

What do you think?

For me, i love writing both paranormal and contemporary and plan to continue doing so. I just agreed to write another paranormal romance for a new multi-author series and i’ll likely write either an extension of an existing paranormal series or start a new series soon. Of course, i’ve got lots of contemporary series to keep up with.

Anything you’d like to see? :  )