Welcome to my new feature called Wednesday Wing where I’ll be passing on
observations, tips and information to readers I’ve made a note of.
Today I’m passing on a tip and my view about BOOK GENRES.
When authors contact me for a book review, they’ll tell me about their book, its book description and where I can find it. I like to know the book genre and not everyone rushes to tell me WHY?
Confidently dropping your book into a book genre is DIFFICULT for some writers and more so for novice self-published authors. There are admittedly hundreds of book genres and the book market IS saturated, BUT as a reader I still need an answer.
What confuses me as a reader?
My book is “contemporary women’s fiction /romance/mystery with some sci-fi”
My book is “historical fantasy with romance and a little paranormal”
My book is “a cross between paranormal and contemporary”
When an author uploads their book to places like Amazon, they have options to place their book in more than one genre category, where the above examples can be used, however when approaching a REAL reader authors need to be more precise.
What works for me?
I really need to know the books ONE MAIN genre for example; Romance, contemporary fiction, murder mystery etc. I can also visualise books in the following popular examples of Sub-genres Historical Romance, Paranormal mystery, Urban Fantasy, Suspense Thriller.
Use a MAIN GENRE and or a SUB-GENRE BUT don’t try to sell me every tiny genre covered in the book, this is just a detail for the reader to discover.
If you are unsure of your genre as the author, then the messages you give to the readers is a confused one too. Most books cover more than one of the hundreds of genres out there – romances can have self discovery in them, mysteries can have scientific technology, contemporary can have a suspicious death or some historical content. What IS important is that you leave that to the reader to discover.
DON’T fall into the trap of crossing too many of the Main genres ie Historical + Sci-fi, Romance + thriller, Fantasy+Contemporary, you may TURN -OFF readers who only like romance or thrillers rather than drawing them in.
Think of it like this; A book is a gift wrapped parcel – you know it’s a gift, the exciting bit is unwrapping and opening what’s inside. Recently I read a book called The Cunning Women’s Cup by Sew Hewitt. (see my review here http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-81Z) I knew the book was a contemporary Women’s Fiction, the book cover had the Duddo standing stones on the front, so that hinted at some ancient history. What I discovered and “unwrapped” were lovely layers of writing which built up a storyline which I wanted to go on forever, the characters became my friends and I loved discovering this GEM of a book.
Here are other Wednesday Wing posts you may find useful.
May 6th 2015 – Checking your WordPress is linked to your Twitter helps share your posts http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7L2
May 13th 2015 – Writer’s Craft books by Rayne Hall full of REALLY useful tips http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7Ma
May 20th 2015 – Hyperlinks, Short links and Linkys http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7Rl
May 27th 2015 – Making your post titles easy to share on Twitter to maximise views. http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7SA
June 17th 2015 – Creating Twitter pics that fit http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7Y4
June 24th 2015 – Creating a slideshow on WordPress http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7Yo
July 1st 2015 – Getting the most out of Google+ posts http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7YM
July 8th 2015 – Automated Tweets, LOVE ‘EM or HATE ‘EM? make use of them http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7Za
Rosie Amber 