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

[huntergal.livejournal.com]

Will the "Publisher" try to round peg it into a square hole to make it more marketable?

Well, that sort of depends, I think of how much of the roundness needs to be trimmed to fit. But remember that marketing is the key--where in the bookstore it's shelved will determine your readers. I've recently taught several classes on the romance subgenres (some of the most confusing), but I always try to tell students that in the real world of the bookstore, the subgenre is only important to the AUTHOR and to the PUBLISHER. The bookstore will shelve it in romance. Period. It's alphabetical. Sherrilyn Kenyon (paranormal) is next to Tori Carrington (contemporary/category) is next to Carla Neggers (romantic suspense). It doesn't matter. It also doesn't matter if Jim Butcher is "alternate reality" or "urban fantasy" or "paranormal". He's shelved in Science Fiction/Fantasy.

And THAT'S what's important to the aspiring writer. The publisher only has X number of lines available and you have to fit the book into one of them. So selecting the publisher becomes the product of what YOU call the book.

So, you call it: Thriller/Fantasy/Romance/Science Fiction

Let's trim that down a little. It has thrilling ELEMENTS. It has romance INSIDE. But you EITHER have a Fantasy OR Science Fiction. Not both. Fantasy requires world-building and magic. If you have both of those, such as LKH does, or Mercedes Lackey, there's your genre. Fantasy is a "master" genre that overcomes the rest. You either have a fantasy with romantic elements or a fantasy romance. Being shelved in romance requires that it have an HEA (Happily Ever After). Science fiction is kicked out because SCIENCE should be the key to the story, rather than magic. If I had this story, I'd either sell to a romance publisher and tell them it was a fantasy romance, or a fantasy publisher and tell them it has a thread of romance. JMHO, of course. Fortunately, Tor has lines for both... ;-)

I actually find selecting the genre really easy, now that I've been studying others on the shelf. :)