Posts Tagged ‘genre of your book’

Researching the market for your book’s genre is essential if you want to successfully target your book and win the attention of publishers and agents.

Here are some examples of genres:

Mystery

The characters of mystery books are usually fictional but they behave in realistic ways. There is a problem that needs to be solved. A mystery may include a detective or a spy as a main character.

Biographies

A biography is a book of true stories about the life of a real person. The author is a different person than the book is written about. The person in the biography can be dead or alive. The author describes how the person affected others.

Fantasy

A fiction story where there is a struggle between good and evil. Often there is also magic. The characters or objects do things that couldn’t happen in real life.

Poetry

This usually touches your feelings. It may or may not be written with rhymes. Poetry books are often read aloud.

Realistic Fiction

The characters behave in realistic ways. There is usually a problem or conflict to be resolved. The book is set in modern times.

Historical Fiction

Some characters may be real and others are fictional. The story takes place during a period in history. Real events from history can be mixed with fictional events.

Science Fiction

These stories are written with future ideas such as space travel and new technology. The characters are fictional.

Non-fiction

These books provide true facts and information about different subjects.

Romance

A story about character’s relationships, loves, affairs or engagements.

Horror

A story designed to scare or frighten the audience, through suspense, violence or shock.

Reference

These books provide true facts and information. Some examples include: dictionaries, almanacs, atlases, thesauruses, and encyclopaedias.

Your Book’s Genre

Your job as a writer is much more than just writing. Anybody can sit down and write a story, that’s simply a matter of sitting down and typing three or four pages a day until its done. But not every book is saleable, not every saleable book will find an audience, and not every book that finds an audience will be able to bring the readers back for more of what the writer is selling.

It is essential as a writer to know everything about your book before you begin writing it. You must know the genre, other authors who write for that genre, the readers, etc.

When preparing your book for submission to an agent or publisher, it’s essential that you define your book’s genre correctly.

The reason for this is that the genre of your book will determine the agents and publishers you will eventually approach. Get it wrong and your book will be rejected time and time again.

Publishers are set up to sell one type of genre. Even large publishers are split into genre defined departments and imprints.

Selling a cook book is very different to selling a horror novel. They have different readers, but also different marketing approaches and design aspects. This means publishers have an internal team dedicated to selling one type of genre. It’s your duty as a writer to correctly define your book’s genre and then choose the right agents and publishers who can sell books of your chosen genre.

How you determine your book’s genre is not as straight forward as it may seem. The development of online bookstores such as Amazon, have created some debate over a definitive list of genre. The reality is that though all of the publishing industry agree on the broad genres, there is much debate about sub-genres.

My advice for a first time writer is to turn to Amazon to help define your book’s genre. Collect a list of five to ten titles you feel are similar to your own, then look on Amazon to see how each is categorised. This should give you a good idea about your own book’s genre.

Love & light

The Word Queen xx

Before you begin planning your book you must spend some time considering the intended market. Your reader is the most precious asset. To escalate up the book charts, it must amaze your readers and have them wanting to read more of your work.

I’m always shocked at how many new writers set off on their book-writing journey and don’t stop to think about who will be reading the finished product. Before you begin writing answer this question:

Who are you writing this book for?

Is it just for you? Is it for your friends and family? Is it for your local community? Is it for the bookshelves? Is it for the whole world?

This isn’t a trick question. It’s simply to help you start thinking about your market. You might think, ‘but why do I have to think about my market already?! I haven’t even begun!’ Well, now is the perfect time to consider your market because this way you can sculpt the book to your market’s needs.

The worst thing that could happen is that you ignore this advice and you plough on with your book regardless. When you’ve finished it, you’ll no doubt send it out to publishers and agents in the hope of landing a book deal. Then the reality will hit home. You’ll receive rejection after rejection and now again one agent might be so kind as to suggest why your work was rejected. Time and time again you’ll hear ‘I don’t see how this book can be marketed. I don’t know who this book is for. I don’t know what genre your book falls within.’

Don’t allow agents and publishers to use this ammunition against you!

One piece of advice which I received years ago from a published writer was this:

‘A new writer writes for themselves, a published writer writes for their readers.’

This has remained with me ever since.

Now let’s now look at the steps to take to identify and determine your book’s market and genre.

Your Ambitions

How big do you want this book to become? Many people just want to write a book for their friends and family. I know my elderly neighbour did. I remember reading his book, which wasn’t written to a very professional standard. It was a confused mess of notes which didn’t make much sense to anyone who didn’t know him. There’s no way any publisher would have taken it on. But that was not his aim. He just wanted to get his memories down on paper, particularly the period of his life during the Second World War, in order to pass on to his grandchildren and a handful of friends. His memories meant something to him.

When you are writing a book for your family, or about your life in general be realistic about the outcome. I’m forever hearing people say, ‘my life would make a great story!’ That may well be the case. But will anyone else want to read about it? If you are serious about publishing your memoirs, then I recommend that you study successful autobiographies and take a memoir writing course.

But let’s say you’re a writer with a dream of getting published. You’ve written a novel and you want to see it in the bookshops. The next question to ask yourself is:

What Genre Is Your Book?

The answer to this question very much depends on who is going to be reading your book.

Imagine the bookshop in your local mall. You walk in and where do you see your book? Which genre / category is it in? Chick-lit? Sci-fi? Horror? Young Adult? If you can be clear about what ‘label’ your book has, then your job will be far easier when you try and sell it to agents and publishers.  

If you’re not sure about the genre, or if your book is a mixture of genres, I’d strongly advise you not to write it at all. Agents will be confused and your manuscript will be slung on the ‘no’ pile in a jiffy. It’s not about narrowing down your market. It’s all about the positioning.

When you walk into that agent’s office, you want to be prepared. If you have no knowledge of the other authors in your genre, then this doesn’t look good. What are they doing? What are they writing about? How do they connect with their readers? What can you model from them? I’m talking basics here – from word count, chapter length, number of characters, typical storylines, etc. And I’m also talking marketing strategies – do they have a blog for their book? Who is their ideal reader? How do they reach them?

So, choose a genre, research it thoroughly and model the most successful authors within this genre.

 The Market

Next, spend some time thinking about the impact you want to make on your market. 

What do you want to get out of your book on a personal level? How many copies do you want to sell? Which countries do you want to sell to? What TV shows do you want to appear on? What radio stations do you want to be interviewed for? Which bestseller lists do you want to top? How much money do you want to make and within what timeframe? Do you see it in the future as a film?

It’s ok to think big at this point. Someone once told me this:

‘Reach for the stars and you’ll at least hit the moon!’

Also, consider the ecological impact of your book. How does it serve humanity and the world on a grander level? Writing is not just about you. A good book is meant to be read by millions. A good book is about communicating your message to other people. 

Writing carries an element of responsibility. No one says writing a book is easy. If they do, don’t believe them. Writing a book takes courage, commitment, hard-work and patience…

Love & Light

The Word Queen xx