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

[alg.livejournal.com]

don't you think a savvy writer, one who writes for intent of being published should keep their eye on the market trend as to what their genre is doing and what cross and sub-genres are hot? I mean, if writing is your business, don't you have to give in a bit to make a living?

Yes and no. The way to keep track of what your genre is doing is to go join your genre's writers' organization and watch what is being *sold* -- not what is being offered on the shelves. The shelves are two years out of date!

As I said in another comment, (at least) 99% of the time, a writer's genre is pretty easily nailed. 50% of that 99% of the time, the writer is the person making it more complicated, because s/he desperately wants to be a unique snowflake.