A Newbie's Guide to Publishing: Guest Post by Bob Mayer

Another multi-million-paid traditional author goes over to the new world of self-publishing and gives his reasons for doing so in this post on JA Konrath's site A Newbie's Guide to Publishing: Guest Post by Bob Mayer . We are in the midst of change that most people outside the self-publishing realm cannot believe is happening. In 10 or 15 years , when self-publishing is what ALL authors do, we will all look back and say "Who woulda' thought it could happen...?"

Which genres are the most work?

My novel, "Quintspinner - A Pirate's Quest" is set in the 1700's in the infamous Golden Age of Piracy. It is an action story but also has an element of romance, a thread of magic, and is, of course, by nature of the settting, a novel in the historical genre. I was chatting with another published author, who has several novels to his credit, all of them historical. He has a PhD in English Literature and is a prolific historian. I asked him if he thought writing in the historical genre was more work than others. He replied that, in his opinion, it was, as the amount of research and fact checking adds to the workload of the story.

Another blogger, who writes/reads/ reviews in SciFi,  volunteered the same thought before I could even ask him. "I just need lots of imagination," he said, "But historical writing takes time and energy and lots of note-taking before as well as during the writing period."

What do you think? If you had to find out and verify how your characters dressed, what they ate, how they acted/lived for the times that they lived in, before you wrote the story, would you still choose that genre? Do romance writers need to be experts in relationships? Crime writers in police work? Which genres are the hardest to do well?