How soon should an author change the genre of their novels?

I am deciding on which novel to work on next, and one of the choices involves a shift in genres, so I would like your help on making the decision as to what is an appropriate time to shift genres.

My first two novels can both be classified into the following genres: General, literary, drama. The first novel also has the historical tag because it is set in 1960s to 1970s, whilst the second novel has some thriller elements.

A couple of the ideas on my list for the next book can be put into the general, literary, drama genres with thriller elements (these will involve much research and take close to a year to complete). But I have a screenplay that received some good reviews on Zoetrope, which can be quickly rewritten as a comedy drama with a romantic sub-plot. The word count would make it a novella, which is much shorter than my previous two works, both being over 100,000 words. Is this too much of a switch in genres for the third book? I plan to use my same name for all my books. I would love views from both readers and writers.

Thanks for your help.

George Hamilton

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About georgehamilton

George Hamilton studied at the University of East London, majoring in development economics. He likes to know what’s going on around the world, to delve into the customs and practices of different cultures, and this led him to Australia during 2002, where he spent several months researching Koori (Aboriginal) culture at the Koori Centre, University of Sydney, amongst other places. Some of that work is reflected in his novel Secrets From The Dust, which has been compared to The Poisonwood Bible, and will spark many interesting discussions for reading groups and students of English literature. He currently lives in London, England.

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