I spent some time in Mox Boarding House yesterday. It is the mecca of gaming in the Seattle area. Seattle is the birthplace of the Shadowrun roleplaying game. That is why is was so difficult to recognize that Mox hardly carried any Shadowrun products. In the one US market where Shadowrun should be selling, it is not. That sucks. That also reminds me of how my success is invariably tied to the success of that franchise as most of my writing is for that franchise. This is to say, I need to expand my horizons and write for other people. When you write for one thing or write one thing or get too successful doing one thing for too long that is what people know you for/as. You become locked into that singular POV and that can limit your ability to do anything else.
I love that Shadowrun straddles sci-fi and fantasy, because it means I still have stake in both. I can move from one to the other freely (I suspect) and not lose too great a market share of my audience. Of course, that means having a personal audience, which I don’t truly know if I have. I’m sure there are metrics and ways to track it, but I remained more focused on telling the stories than figuring out who is reading them. Still, I care enough to wonder if when I do write more independent stuff, will I have an audience.
Again it all comes down to telling good stories. I think I do that. At least I do it enough that I feel good about the words I put down on paper, and that in my mind is success.