They have changed the wording in recent years…but remember wayyy back in the day when the little white tags on pillows used to read, “DO NOT REMOVE THIS TAG UNDER PENALTY OF LAW!” ?

Well, when I was a wee, angelic little thing, I mistakenly did something truly awful one day.

I accidentally ripped one of those tags off an old red throw pillow.  :shock:

One of my older relatives picked the tag up off the floor and sternly waved it at me.  “Do you know what this tag says?!”

Mouth and eyes wide open, I silently nodded,

Raising her voice, she wiggled it under my nose.  “Do you have any idea what you’ve DONE here?!”

Yeah, I could read a bit–but I had no idea of the cosmic significance of what I’d done.  Left alone at the scene of the crime, I waited apprehensively for the Pillow Police to come and drag me away from my family.

From that day, until the day that pillow literally fell apart, I was on my guard.  A strange knock at the door late at night?  Visit from our imposing landlord?  Guy in business suit, pretending he’d come to sell life iinsurance?  Ha!!  I grabbed the pillow and was off running, stashing it in my most secret places.  It wouldn’t see the light of day again until my mom (obviously not in on the conspiracy) would walk around the house muttering, “where the devil is that pillow??”—and I’d have to discreetly put it back.  Until the next time…

I always think of that incident when I hear people talk about the importance of authors being ‘branded’ and/or ‘tagged’.  I understand it all as far as marketing, promotion, reader expectation.

But as an author, I’ve always wanted to write in different genres, different styles.  It seemed to me that, if a reader loves your writing in one genre, why wouldn’t they be willing to at least give the author a shot in another, as long as it’s well-written?

Are we so worried about losing our ‘audience’ that we feel we must restrict ourselves and our creativity, not venture into other arenas?  And how much credit are we giving our readers when we do this?

If you love certain authors, and you saw, for example, Nora Roberts’ name in the Mystery section, or an Emma Holly title with the Inspirationals, or Stephen King under Romance—wouldn’t you go out on a limb, take a chance to see what they were like?  :razz:

Of course, under such circumstances, I suppose I could always use the tried-and-true refuge of “The Pseudonym(s).”

But I think I might just feel like I was still hiding that poor old red pillow…