Genre is also a marketing tool created by the publishers, because like librarians book sellers also need to know where to put your books, on the shelf or in the bin.
Until you’ve “made it” as an author to the point where people go looking for “the new book by …” like they do for the new John Grisham / Dan Brown / Stephen King etc etc, you have to live on the shelves with the rest of your peers, that place where your potential readers go to find new things that are like the things that they already like.
I think a lot of that has to do with niching down into specific sub categories on places like Amazon, in some bizarre way to try and aid discoverability - if that book was in Barnes & Noble then it'd probably be in the SciFi section as that's probably the most dominant one in that list - although most likely if it's too niche they probably wouldn't have stocked it in the first place unless it was the latest TikTok blockbuster then they'd be jumping on the bandwagon as fast as anyone else.
The reality is that physical shelf space isn't infinite unlike in online stores like Amazon and the mainstream physical world just isn't set up for the ultra niche.
My advice (FWIW) to authors would be to identify which of the main core genres (Romance, Fantasy, SciFi, Mystery / Crime, Thriller / Suspense, Horror, Action / Adventure) is MOST aligned with your story and aim to market broadly towards that audience and then to focus down on the sub genres and mash ups in increasing order of specificity as needed. The trick then is crafting the cover, title, blurb and the rest of the book package well enough that it attracts the right audience and pushes away the wrong one.
What makes it confusing is that the first level of sub categories such as YA can apply to many different genres and can often be misinterpreted as a genre in it's own right.
Likewise if you take a Romantic SciFi novel and a SciFi Romance Novel - which category do they both belong in? In this case I think it depends on which is the dominant element of the story. For instance a hardcore romance that has a sci-fi setting could be categorised in Romance, but a hardcore SciFi story with a strong romantic plotline would probably be in SciFi.
Another problem to consider is reader expectations, because like it or not genre (as well as cover, title and blurb) also helps to form a promise to the reader about what to expect. Annoyingly we ask people to pay for their books before they read them so unless the reader is an open minded persons who's prepared to take a chance on an unknown author and judge a book purely on it's merit as a story we have to make sure to deliver on the implicit promises that the book makes. So the author as the person who knows the story best, best be prepared to set and fulfil reader expectations otherwise they'll get a slew of 1 star reviews.
I know Michael Bunker...and we used to chat weekly as he was shooting up the Amazon ladder. He wrote one of my all time favorite books...Surviving Off Off Grid.
Will never be able to recommend that book enough, and its one of the reasons I moved to the country.
I remember when he told me about the Amish Sci-Fi....I couldn't stop laughing.
You make excellent points, Jon. Truly.
The whole conversation cracked my brain because genre isn't what I thought it was...
That's a very interesting question. I don't really write in a "genre" other than what I'd call "literary." Not because what I write is "special," but because I'm so all over the place with my writing. I do like to get into my characters, though. I like to explore what makes them tick, and by doing that, making what I write more of a character study than anything else. I guess you could say I've sort of pigeon-holed myself. I wrote fantasy, and I wrote a dystopian future sci-fi novel, as well. But I like the novella category best, which is not a genre. It allows for exploration though. However, the fact that I can't be put into one specific genre, or more broadly, seen as a literary category, it leaves me hanging. No one reads me as much as they would if I were to write Flash fiction, or Fantasy, or Romance, or Sci-Fi. I might qualify as saying I write Historical Fiction, but come on, is it historical if I'm writing about events in my own life time? Apparently, yes. The story I'm working on now takes place in the 70's. "That's" Historical Fiction? So I'll take the literary label, and I guess the Historical Fiction as well, but what I want to do is carve out a bigger niche with the novella category, which isn't a genre, but a category.
Genre is also a marketing tool created by the publishers, because like librarians book sellers also need to know where to put your books, on the shelf or in the bin.
Until you’ve “made it” as an author to the point where people go looking for “the new book by …” like they do for the new John Grisham / Dan Brown / Stephen King etc etc, you have to live on the shelves with the rest of your peers, that place where your potential readers go to find new things that are like the things that they already like.
I see that. That's also what I thought....until I started seeing SO MANY GENRE'S being talked about by todays youth.
...and I mean crazy combinations that make me do a double-take, but the youth?
They talk about 'romatic-zombie-sci-fi-history' like it was the latest song on Spotify and I was the last one to the party!
...I'm starting to think I wasn't even INVITED to the party.
I think a lot of that has to do with niching down into specific sub categories on places like Amazon, in some bizarre way to try and aid discoverability - if that book was in Barnes & Noble then it'd probably be in the SciFi section as that's probably the most dominant one in that list - although most likely if it's too niche they probably wouldn't have stocked it in the first place unless it was the latest TikTok blockbuster then they'd be jumping on the bandwagon as fast as anyone else.
The reality is that physical shelf space isn't infinite unlike in online stores like Amazon and the mainstream physical world just isn't set up for the ultra niche.
My advice (FWIW) to authors would be to identify which of the main core genres (Romance, Fantasy, SciFi, Mystery / Crime, Thriller / Suspense, Horror, Action / Adventure) is MOST aligned with your story and aim to market broadly towards that audience and then to focus down on the sub genres and mash ups in increasing order of specificity as needed. The trick then is crafting the cover, title, blurb and the rest of the book package well enough that it attracts the right audience and pushes away the wrong one.
What makes it confusing is that the first level of sub categories such as YA can apply to many different genres and can often be misinterpreted as a genre in it's own right.
Likewise if you take a Romantic SciFi novel and a SciFi Romance Novel - which category do they both belong in? In this case I think it depends on which is the dominant element of the story. For instance a hardcore romance that has a sci-fi setting could be categorised in Romance, but a hardcore SciFi story with a strong romantic plotline would probably be in SciFi.
Another problem to consider is reader expectations, because like it or not genre (as well as cover, title and blurb) also helps to form a promise to the reader about what to expect. Annoyingly we ask people to pay for their books before they read them so unless the reader is an open minded persons who's prepared to take a chance on an unknown author and judge a book purely on it's merit as a story we have to make sure to deliver on the implicit promises that the book makes. So the author as the person who knows the story best, best be prepared to set and fulfil reader expectations otherwise they'll get a slew of 1 star reviews.
Here's an interesting article that digs into this further - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/17-most-popular-genres-fiction-why-matter-amanda-patterson/
Personally one of my favourite sub categories has to be Amish Sci Fi. Pennsylvania by Michael Bunker is a must read. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22009481-pennsylvania-omnibus
I know Michael Bunker...and we used to chat weekly as he was shooting up the Amazon ladder. He wrote one of my all time favorite books...Surviving Off Off Grid.
Will never be able to recommend that book enough, and its one of the reasons I moved to the country.
I remember when he told me about the Amish Sci-Fi....I couldn't stop laughing.
You make excellent points, Jon. Truly.
The whole conversation cracked my brain because genre isn't what I thought it was...
Not even close.
That's a very interesting question. I don't really write in a "genre" other than what I'd call "literary." Not because what I write is "special," but because I'm so all over the place with my writing. I do like to get into my characters, though. I like to explore what makes them tick, and by doing that, making what I write more of a character study than anything else. I guess you could say I've sort of pigeon-holed myself. I wrote fantasy, and I wrote a dystopian future sci-fi novel, as well. But I like the novella category best, which is not a genre. It allows for exploration though. However, the fact that I can't be put into one specific genre, or more broadly, seen as a literary category, it leaves me hanging. No one reads me as much as they would if I were to write Flash fiction, or Fantasy, or Romance, or Sci-Fi. I might qualify as saying I write Historical Fiction, but come on, is it historical if I'm writing about events in my own life time? Apparently, yes. The story I'm working on now takes place in the 70's. "That's" Historical Fiction? So I'll take the literary label, and I guess the Historical Fiction as well, but what I want to do is carve out a bigger niche with the novella category, which isn't a genre, but a category.