You’d think this was a slam-dunk simple question. How hard can it be, to know what you’re writing?
As it turns out – it’s pretty hard.
A surprising percentage of the people I work with, whether that’s in coaching sessions or query package critiques, aren’t quite sure where their stories fall.
Sometimes that’s because they haven’t really done market research.
Sometimes that’s because they’re writing cross-genre work.
Sometimes it’s because they’re working on things that could fall in several areas. It has a mystery… but there’s a love story. Does that mean it’s a romance? Or is it a thriller? A romantic suspense?
But the protagonist is a woman, and it’s not particularly suspenseful. So… maybe women’s fiction? And what the heck is this “upmarket” tag? Or is it literary fiction?
See? It can be tricky.
Why this matters.
You might be more intent on writing the book you want to write, and think you’ll just figure it out after the book is finished.
There’s nothing wrong with this, per se.
Where you run into problems is when you then try to sell the book, whether that’s to traditional via an agent, or when you’re self-publishing.
When you approach an agent, you’re trying to convince them that not only do you understand the market, you understand what they’re looking for – and you know that the book you’re offering fits that.
When you’re self-publishing, you need to choose categories that will help the most likely audiences find and purchase your book.
So how do you figure it out?
First, you’re going to look at where your work might fit. (See above.)
Second, you’re going to research books in those genres and subgenres. A quick Amazon search should work.
What are the similarities? What are the common threads between the book descriptions, for example? What are the components?
Also, what are the differences? What makes one subgenre different than another?
Necessities and deal breakers.
Next, you’re going to read books in those genres and subgenres.
Ideally, I’d suggest at least five of each. Yes, that can seem really time consuming! But as writers, it’s helpful for us to read in different genres, so this research is going to be useful no matter what.
(If you find yourself dragging your feet in a particular genre, you might realize that it’s not the home for your book– DNF (Do Not Finish) and move on.)
What you’re looking for: the things that each genre must have… and the things it shouldn’t have
For example: a true mystery must have a dead body. Somebody’s just missing? Not technically a mystery. It should not have a fake out. Death’s mandatory.
Romance must have a happy ending, whether it’s for right now or forever. And it should not have one or all of the main characters dying in the end. (I will go into why the debate around this is important in a future newsletter, but for now – just trust me.)
Go for closest, not exact.
If you’re telling yourself that your story is absolutely brand new, a complete genre-breaker, so unique that it’s unable to be categorized… that is possible.
There are ground breaking works of speculative fiction, slip-stream, literary fiction, that almost break the brain with their nonconformity.
That said – you’re in for an uphill battle getting it sold. Why? Because an agent’s not going to necessarily want to fight to convince a publisher that there’s a market for it.
With self-publishing, you’ll have a slightly easier route since you can simply iterate and test categories and keywords until you find something that gains traction, but you’re going to need to find that target audience regardless.
If you can find something that’s the near occasion of what you’re writing, find it. You may discover that your work is not as unconventional as you’d originally thought after the research.
(If you’re still unsure, I do have a book that might help clear it up: Genre & Voice.)
You don’t have to have it perfect, and you’ll have time to iterate. Still, the closer you can get, the better your result.