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demystifying publishing

Genre

Genre as a marketing category!
Publishers and editors do not think about genre the same way authors do. Here's an explanation.

... Now I write an ode to spinach:

spinach,
you
are green
and
i wish i had more
of you than
what I ate
(yum yum yum)
at five in the morning,
dawn
creeping
up
you are
(my sunshine and)
the perfect delivery method
for salt and
garlic.

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No, I wasn't dissing! Just saying I prefer your comments. LOL

*stubbornly wants to know when this story is hitting the shelves*

Merry SPD to you. Hope you can find some green vegetarian beer! *g*

My favorite part of "new weird" is that China has declared that it is already "over".

I think too much sub-categorizing just gives readers a headache, frankly. I'd love to see a section in a bookstore called "Anna Says Read This". :)

Well thanks! I'm glad you find it all helpful. :)

Well, okay. As long as there is much Snark Respect. :)

I wrote a hard sci-fi. When I sent it to my little circle - I kept being told it was very romantic and oh, la, la... sexy.

So I pitch it as a SF Romance now (which everyone is interested in - so yeah!), but I still always think of it as hard sci-fi, I almost feel like I'm perpetrating a fraud.

I keep wondering if SF readers will be more tolerant of the sex (yeah, romance, whatever...) or if Romance readers will be more tolerant of the science...

Would you ever *leave out* genre info, (in talking about a book) just because you think it will confuse the issue?

Thanks!

JD

PS - Spinach, yum...

Totally respecting the snark here. (After all, I live with four males--I'm all about the snark. *g*)

My favorite part of "new weird" is that China has declared that it is already "over".

Reminds me of William Gibson declaring cyberpunk was dead about a week and a half after Neuromancer hit the shelves. *grin*

Once the book is being sold to B&N, etc., we can't leave out the genre info. In fact, before we buy the book, we have to decide what the genre is, because we need to put it on the schedule, and our schedule gets sorted by SF, Fantasy, Mystery, Romance, etc.

There are three questions you need answers to:

1. Did you really write a hard SF novel?

2. Who are the people telling you that it is romantic? Are they romance readers, or SF readers? Do you know any hard SF readers who are willing to read your book and tell you what they think?

3. Do you care? If you send your hard SF novel to an editor who wants to shelve it in romance, and everyone who reads it thinks it's a romance, and the editor is convinced it will do well as a romance... do you *really* care that it is not shelved in the SF section?

I keep wondering if SF readers will be more tolerant of the sex (yeah, romance, whatever...) or if Romance readers will be more tolerant of the science...

A little of both. I have cross-over fans from Romance, although some would have preferred to see the relationships more in the foreground. But, that wasn't the story I was writing, so there we have an example of expectations running up against the reality.

Some SF readers have complained about the distraction of the relationships, but not too many.

I have heard that Romance readers are more willing to cross over into other genres than other genre readers are to cross into Romance, so if you have a book that's primarily SF, it may be a good idea to sell it as that, because the Romance readers will find it anyway and not necessarily the other way around.

All that being said, I felt funny pitching my books to Romance readers, even though I was advised to do so since they did receive some buzz from that quarter. And if I had it to do all over again, I would still pitch my books as adventure/espionage with hard medical detail, because I don't think the relationships stand out enough to qualify as even borderline Romance.

And if I sound confused about all this, it's because I am.

I should introduce myself, I think. Sent over this way by

jaylake and others.

I am confused by what to call this genre. I often see books by LKH, Kim Harrison, Kelley Armstrong called Urban Fantasy. Sometimes I see them called Contemporary Fantasy or Dark Fantasy. I also frequently see Paranormal. Sometimes they are put in the SF/F section, sometimes in the general fiction, and sometimes in the horror section at the bookstore. What genre do these books fall under?

Hi, welcome!

Romance readers will, in fact, leave the romance section of the bookstore. Other readers will too, but romance readers do it the most.

It is a confusing thing -- it's all confusing. Genre is mostly fluid -- readers will read what they like, usually, regardless of where the bookstore puts it. On the other hand, if the bookstore doesn't put the book the book's audience is looking, not too many people are going to go out of their way searching.

That is because publishing is a subjective business. It is a business of opinions. When I read Point of Honour by Madeleine Robins, I am reading a mystery novel; others are reading a novel of alternate history about a woman P.I.

I will say that when I turned the book in to

pnh I did tell him, "I'm handing you a marketing nightmare." I think of the books as mysteries (actually, I think of them as Regency Noir, but that's not something you put on the spine of a book) and when I see them at Borders they shelve them in Romance. It's gotten good reviews among the Romance reviewers; SF and Fantasy readers seem to like them, and Booklist said that Point of Honour was one of the best historicals of the year. I say all this not to preen, but to point out that this stuff is very very fluid. I think the single hardest job for a book like this is cover design, as you have to send clues to a wide variety of readers to let them know that it's a book they'd be comfortable with.

Anna is so smart. :) However, it's also the author's job to know which genre you're writing. Otherwise, even if you do sell the book, too many readers will not be happy. Sales will not be happy, neither will marketing or publicity. And many editors aren't as open minded as Anna. They want to be able to take your book to marketing and sales and say, this book will sell because it's like Ms. New York Times best selling author's book--only sassier. Of course there are always exceptions--but it's hard enough to sell a book, why buck the odds?

These are fantasy novels. Period. That is the genre. You will also hear "paranormal" or "supernatural" or "supernormal" -- those are not the official genre, but they are descriptors of elements within the novel.

Next you have the descriptors: contemporary, urban, dark. Other descriptors for fantasy novels include: historical, epic, high, quest, sword-and-sorcer.

Contemporary/urban fantasy is a pretty big subgenre -- fantasy novels set now, or close to now. John M. Ford, Terri Windling, Charles de Lint, Laurell Hamilton, Kelley Armstrong, Charlaine Harris, Jim Butcher... These are authors who incorporate fantastical elements (magic, vampires, fairies, etc.) into contemporary city-settings.

Where books are stocked in a bookstore isn't as black and white as I've made it seem -- for example, in some places, Laurell Hamilton is stocked in romance, because the bookstore manager knows that the majority of people buying LKH's books are romance readers, and that makes it easier for the romance readers to find the books.

Does that make more sense?

Sorry - I didn't mean leave out completely - I just meant if there are different genre elements... leaving out mention of that element.

1. Yes - it has actual science in it. Space Elevators, Quantom Processors, a molecule that can be turned into any other molecule, flying cars...

2. Some of the readers are hard, some are fant/sf readers, some are romance (They made me read Gabaldon - damn them!)

3. Hummm, I do care. Not enough to be a deal breaker, but I do care. And I think it wouldn't make a good romance offering because it would be too *hard* (in both ways). But my *thoughts* on romance genre may be outdated as I rarely have read them unless there is some sort of genre element.

JD

I would love to put "regency noir" on the spine of Book #3.

Vincent is licking the screen -- I think he agrees!

You are the perfect example of a genre straddler who has done it really well; you don't give short shrift to any of the genres included. Sometimes it works!! :)

This is true!

And 99% of the time, books really do slot pretty easily into one genre or another -- because, as Mad said above, genre is fluid, the borders aren't static.

That's why no matter what authors say about their books having no genre, the editor has to figure one out!

Excellent post, and super bonus points for having SG-1 give the book quotes! :)

Yes, we often leave the myriad subgenres out when discussing books. It's much easier on the sales force and the booksellers if we tell them, "This is a romance novel set in the future," than if we tell them, "This book has a mystery plot and a huge romance plot, and is set in the future, and has a lot of sf elements."

Samantha Carter, budding author, is the running joke in all the "demystifying publishing" posts I've made. Glad you enjoyed it. :)

kick-ass novel that is *truly* Austen-meets-noir, with all the implications thereof there on the page.

Oh, that sounds so good. I'm going to have to look for them.

Thanks!

JD

This is an interesting debate. Will you be posting more about it on your LJ? I'd like to hear some different perspectives on it. On the one hand I agree with your position, but at the same time, it seems to me that it can be difficult if you go too far outside the genres you're familiar with.

I went to a writer's group meeting, and found that there was a really wide variety there. I thought it was great that they were such a versatile group, but I could see members having a lot of trouble when it came to critiquing poetry, for instance. I have to wonder if the lone poet in the group was benefitting all that much.

But you are more open-minded than many editors about the genres being fluid. Some are very set in their ways and believe that there is only one way to tell a story--deviate and they reject. Take too many risks--they reject.

if i ever have a bookstore, that will be a section.

oh wait, no it won't, it will be THE NAME OF THE STORE. (it will be an exclusive boutique establishment!)

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