Genre

[alg]

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.

Comments

[madrobins]

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.

[alg.livejournal.com]

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!! :)