by Anne R. Allen
Choosing a genre for your novel is one of the toughest challenges for many new writers. This week both former agent Nathan Bransford and current agent Jessica Faust wrote posts telling authors their books must have a genre. But new writers may not know why this has become such a hard-and-fast rule, or why the publishing world has become so fragmented.
Some writers may think that they can just go indie, bypass all those agent rules, and they won’t need no stinkin’ genres.
Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Categories are even more important if you’re selling through Amazon and other online retailers.
So Why Can’t You Just Say You’ve Written “Mainstream Fiction”?
Because that category doesn’t really exist anymore, alas.
Yes, Virginia, once upon a time there was indeed something called Mainstream Fiction. Authors wrote it to make money. But they also wrote it to express deep feelings, explore the human condition and satirize or protest society’s wrongs.
These novels came from the pens of authors (to name a few) like Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, Anthony Trollope, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Louisa May Alcott, The Brontës, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Mark Twain, and Charles Dickens. In the 20th century, they came from authors (again a random selection) like Ernest Hemingway, Sinclair Lewis, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, Harper Lee, Pearl S. Buck, Margaret Mitchell, James Michener, Norman Mailer, Alex Haley, E. L. Doctorow, Kurt Vonnegut, and Margaret Atwood.
These aren’t “genre” writers: they didn’t write commercial pulp for the masses. But they also aren’t primarily “literary” authors: writing only for the ivy-covered classrooms and exclusive journals of the elite.
They wrote thoughtful entertainment intended for the general population—people educated enough to read a newspaper or the Saturday Evening Post, but not necessarily schooled in Classics, philology, or theories of literary criticism.
In the 1980s, Mainstream Fiction Started Disappearing.
Armistead Maupin wrote his brilliant serial, Tales of the City for all San Franciscans in the 1970s. But he was shuffled off to the newly-created LGBT section of bookstores when Tales left the pages of the San Francisco Chronicle and came out in book form a few years later. Vonnegut and Atwood became Sci-Fi authors. Big family sagas like The Thorn Birds either disappeared or became “women’s fiction.”
If you compare the bestselling books of the 1970s to the bestsellers of the 1980s, you’ll see a profound change in what people were reading.
In the 1970s, most titles were Mainstream Fiction. Authors like Leon Uris, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Irwin Shaw, James Michener, Kurt Vonnegut, Mario Puzo, and Belva Plain dominated the bestseller lists.
But by the ‘80s, the top sellers were almost all “genre”—dominated by Romance (Danielle Steele) Horror (Stephen King) and Thrillers (Tom Clancy.)
Why did this happen? I can only guess. I was only a lowly bookstore clerk at the time. But I know increasing the number of categories made shelving and inventory management easier for bookstores. As the relationship between Big Pub and Big Box bookstores got cozier, bookstores were probably able to ask publishers to create more separate categories
When I first worked in bookstores in the 1970s, we had constant debates about where to shelve books like Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness, a LGBT classic, or Gail Parent’s Sheila Levine is Dead and Living in New York — which would now be called chick lit. When the new categories came along, they were a big help to bookstore clerks.
But they killed off Mainstream Fiction.
In the Heyday of Mainstream Fiction, “Genre” meant “Dime Novels.”
Back when serious writers wrote Mainstream, genre fiction was considered “pulp.” The books were printed on cheap newsprint with thin paper covers that tended to curl when the cellophane coating peeled off. The stories were formulaic, action-packed, and aimed at a working class, less educated reader.
Authors like Mickey Spillane, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Louis L’Amour, and Barbara Cartland turned out pulp fiction by the truckload.
Later came the “airplane” or “beach” books, which allowed the more educated reader to be a bit frivolous. This kind of fun, lightweight fiction again came out in cheap mass-market paperbacks—the ones for sale in drug stores and supermarkets as well as “real” bookstores.
By the 1980s, Serious Writers Were Publishing “Genre Fiction.”
As Mainstream Fiction disappeared, more and more serious writers started writing genre. Authors like P. D. James and Ruth Rendell wrote sophisticated literary mysteries that nobody had to pretend were “beach reading.” (Yes, I know the classic British mysteries by authors like Dorothy Sayers are now considered serious literature, but they were “genre” books when written.)
But now the more literary mysteries were coming out in hardcover, not direct to mass-market paperback—no longer “pulp fiction.”
By 1990, horror writer Stephen King started appearing regularly in the august pages of The New Yorker, and works by Sci-Fi author Ursula K. Le Guin were making their way into college classrooms.
At the same time, literary author and Whitbread-winner Kate Atkinson started writing her Jackson Brodie mystery series. And Donna Tartt’s mystery, The Secret History, became a bestselling literary phenomenon.
A romance novella, The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller, became a major bestseller, getting reviews and kudos from journals that never would have touched a romance in the pulp era.
And in 1985, a western (once the epitome of “pulp fiction”) Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, won the Pulitzer Prize.
Several Genres Absorbed Mainstream
Then came the rise of the Young Adult novel. With Harry Potter and the Twilight trilogy, YA became the money-making machine that drove the publishing industry. And in YA, all types of fiction are allowed, from Romance to Literary and yes, even Mainstream — like The Fault in Our Stars and 13 Reasons Why.
About the same time Helen Fielding sparked a whole new genre of comedies of manners with Bridget Jones Diary. The new genre got the unfortunate name of “chick lit” because publishers decided only women would read comic fiction with a female protagonist. Some excellent authors like Marian Keyes and Jennifer Weiner—who once would have been Mainstream—went to the “chick lit” shelf.
Some of our best writers are now shelved in the Women’s Fiction, YA, or LGBT sections, where many former Mainstream Fiction readers and reviewers don’t find them.
By the turn of the millennium, many more “serious” writers were writing genre fiction, and there was more respect for genre writers.
But the audience had fragmented and Mainstream had all but disappeared.
Literary Fiction became Academic Fiction
Also during the late 70s and early 80s “Literary Fiction” became murkier and more self-referential. There had always been esoteric prose aimed at the intellectual elite, of course, from Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy to James Joyce’s Ulysses and the musings of Gertrude Stein. But in the 1970s, dense, enigmatic literature aimed at college classroom discussions seemed to take over. One discouraged reader dismissed it as “dense prose about middle-aged professors with prostate issues.”
Writers like Donald Barthelme baffled readers with word-collages, and John Fowles got us to slog through The French Lieutenant’s Woman and The Magus. Some of us actually made it through all 800 pages of John Barth’s The Sot Weed Factor, a postmodern satire of the 18th century picaresque novel.
And of course there was Thomas Pynchon. I can’t tell you how long I carried around a copy of Gravity’s Rainbow until I admitted I didn’t care about anybody in it.
I’m not saying these books aren’t brilliant. They are classics for a reason. But they are meant for a highly-educated, sophisticated customer to parse and ponder.
And mostly they don’t make a lot of money.
There are Separate Learning Paths for Academic vs. Genre Fiction
So why am I telling you all this?
Because I so often run into writers who are following the wrong path for what they want to write.
Authors who want to be the next David Foster Wallace, Michael Chabon, or Jonathan Franzen feel squelched and disrespected in workshops aimed at genre writers. And they send out manuscripts to agents who may have checked the “literary” box, but the ms. keeps coming back. Maybe with suggestions to “pick up the pace” and “add some action,” or “please cut the talking lobsters.” 🙂
The manuscript gets rejected again and again, even though it may be a beautiful piece of literature.
Why? Because there’s not much money in literary fiction. Especially the super-academic kind. These authors need connections in academia and the world of prestigious literary magazines. The best way to get in those is through academia itself.
Some academic fiction makes the bestseller lists, of course. And literary-academic authors can even get rich. John Updike’s The Witches of Eastwick made him a tidy sum when he sold it to Hollywood. Although he did say they basically paid him for the title and rewrote everything else.
But most authors who write his brand of gorgeous prose don’t make much money. There’s prestige, of course, and prizes. But mostly these authors make their money in other ways than writing novels.
Usually teaching.
And you can’t teach at the college level unless you have an advanced degree.
If You Write Literary Fiction, Your Best Path to Publication is Through Academia.
If you aspire to be the next James Joyce, Don DeLillo, or Thomas Pynchon, you’re the reason there are MFA programs.
And Poets and Writers magazine.
And literary journals.
Your road to book publication should be via many short stories published in increasingly prestigious journals. Even though you love the long form, work on those short stories!
And get yourself in a literary-oriented creative writing program. This doesn’t mean you have to get into some elite Ivy League school. But a low-residency MFA program like the one at Goddard, or a summer session at the Iowa workshop can make your career.
These programs allow you to network with the right people and make the connections to get reviews from prestigious journals. One good review in the New York Review of Books can sell more literary fiction than 1000s of Amazon reviews.
And if you want to be reviewed in those journals, self-publishing is not for you. In fact self-publishing is a bad idea for most literary authors unless they have powerful marketing skills and maybe have the editor of The Paris Review on speed dial.
This is because serious literary/academic readers still discover books through prestigious journals, not Amazon also-boughts. They might buy a book even though The New Yorker gave it a meh review, but it will be to prove David Denby wrong, not because they suddenly discovered book bloggers.
Anna Schmidt, a highly successful romance writer, discovered this the hard way when she wrote a literary novel. Her publisher wanted nothing to do with it. As Anna says, “The bottom line is that publishers want what has been proven to sell, and they aren’t in the business of gambling.” She has self-published. But it’s a tough road. She had to restart her career from scratch.
Genre Writers Don’t Benefit From an MFA.
If you write the popular mainstream-type fiction now known as “genre,” you don’t need an MFA or a degree in Creative Writing. In fact those things may hinder you if you want to be a full-time author.
Those classes in how to write beautiful descriptions and include every sense in every scene are not going to get you published. Neither will including an echo of the poetry of Francois Villon or a sly reference to the later works of Mrs. Fanny Burney (yes, I did that.)
A good undergraduate course in the basics of creative writing can help any writer, but beware the overly academic instructor. They may teach you to do exactly the things that will keep your work in the slush pile forever.
I was infuriated when I saw a decades out-of-date comparison of literary vs. genre fiction at a prestigious website last week. It said, in essence: “Genre fiction is formulaic verbal popcorn, but literary fiction is meaty and creative.” Maybe that was the case in 1959 — but in 2019? Totally untrue.
So how does a creative, non-formulaic, but also non-academic author learn about writing and publishing?
Guess what? You’re in the right place. You can learn a lot about the publishing industry in blogs like this one where veterans of the business share their expertise. Former Writer’s Digest editor Jane Friedman and former agent Nathan Bransford offer the equivalent of complete courses in how to write and publish in their archives.
And here’s a post from the prolific Elizabeth S. Craig on how you can make a nice living self-publishing fiction.
You can also go to writers’ conferences, most of which are aimed at popular rather than academic writing. (But do your homework. Some are very academic and others are aimed mostly at screenwriters.)
If you Write What Used to be Called Mainstream Fiction, is Self-Publishing the Answer?
Unfortunately, it’s hard to sell serious, Mainstream-type fiction to indie readers right now. Voracious readers buy indie books because they are lower priced, like the original pulp fiction. They’re looking for the fun series-novels that can be gobbled up quickly.
But there’s one place Mainstream authors are doing well: Amazon Imprints. Amazon’s Lake Union publishes Catherine Ryan Hyde, who writes what used to be called Mainstream Fiction.
Simon and Schuster shoehorned her first novel, Pay it Forward, into YA, which was not where it belonged at all. (She has since rewritten a version suitable for children.) Then S&S tried to sell her next book, Electric God, as Christian and Inspirational, which was even farther off the mark. But now she’s with Amazon, which, as we know, has its own way of doing things. They don’t have a category called “Mainstream Fiction” but they do have one called “American Fiction.”
At this writing, Catherine’s new book is #1 in that category.
And since Amazon is successful at selling something simply called “American Fiction” maybe readers will also buy “Canadian Fiction”, “British Fiction”, “Australian Fiction”, etc. assuming Amazon offers those categories—and indie authors could get themselves into those categories.
True “Genre” Writers Do Very Well Self-Publishing.
Books that are truly “genre” in the old-fashioned sense sell well when self-published. Authors who write fast and have a handle on social media marketing can make considerably more than their slowed-down trad-pubbed counterparts.
I read recently that the indie ebook is the new “airplane” novel. And that’s not a bad analogy. If you can picture your book on a carousel in an airport shop or a drugstore, the indie path may be exactly right for you.
Romance, cozy mysteries, westerns, fast-paced thrillers, fantasy, and horror do very well as indies.
Genres Formerly Known as Mainstream Fiction May Do Better with Traditional Publishing: For Now
Upmarket women’s fiction (sometimes called “book club fiction,”) serious historicals, non-Romance YA, complex mysteries, more scientific sci-fi, and other genres that require a bit more effort on the part of the reader may do better with a traditional publisher right now. (Also all children’s books. Children prefer the tactile experience of reading a paper book.)
These authors can self-publish of course, but they probably won’t succeed on the “write-a-book-a-month” go-go-go path so many indie gurus teach. More thoughtful readers don’t want fast-food fiction. They don’t read for plot alone. They want something they can savor.
If you write in these genres, you might want to join a Twitter group I just discovered called the #TurtleWriters, who give themselves permission to write slow and savor the process.
So why does some fiction do better for self-publishers than others?
It’s partly because of reviews. Book clubs are more likely to pick up a book that’s well-reviewed in a mainstream publication than one recommended on social media. Also the more upmarket genres sell more in hard copy than in ebooks. And the hardcover versions make good gifts.
But it’s not impossible to succeed as an indie with upmarket novels. A savvy marketer can do almost anything in the e-age.
I happen to think the world is starved for good Mainstream Fiction. Maybe Amazon publishing and indies will bring it back to its former glory. If you’re not quite sure what genre your writing falls into, check out Ruth Harris’s post on Genre Guidelines.
by Anne R. Allen (@annerallen) August 4, 2019
***
What about you, scriveners? Have you found yourself in classes or workshops that had nothing to do with the kind of writing you’re interested in? Did you read Mainstream Fiction at some point in your life? Do you miss it?
BOOK OF THE WEEK
Only 99c at All the Amazon Stores to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Woodstock!
THE LADY OF THE LAKEWOOD DINER
(Mainstream Fiction masquerading as a Mystery)
Someone has shot aging bad-girl rocker Morgan Le Fay and threatens to finish the job. Is it fans of her legendary dead rock-god husband, Merlin? Or is the secret buried in her childhood hometown of Avalon, Maine?
Morgan’s childhood best friend Dodie, the no-nonsense owner of a dilapidated diner, may be the only one who knows the dark secret that can save Morgan’s life. And both women may find that love really is better the second time around. The Grail legend meets Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.
“This isn’t just “funny women’s fiction for the Woodstock generation,” it’s a canny cultural observation that brings to mind two of my favorite British authors, Barbara Pym and Penelope Fitzgerald. Yes, the humor is there and sometimes spew-your-cocktail funny, but the character depth and plot fulfillment go so far beyond the humor. I felt I knew these people. I felt I was there.”.…Debra Eve at The Later Bloomer
OPPORTUNITY ALERTS
Stories That Need to Be Told Contest from TulipTree Publishing. $1,000 prize for a poem, short story, or essay that “tells a story.” The winner also gets publication in the contest anthology, Stories That Need to Be Told. Plus a 2 year subscription to Duotrope. Submit a poem, a story, or an essay of up to 10,000 words with a $20 entry fee by August 15.
Headway Quarterly Writing Contest. NO FEE! Genre: Poetry, fiction, nonfiction. Theme is color—whatever that means to you—but should also be limited to 350 words in length. Prize: $100. Deadline: August 15, 2019.
IWSG Anthology Contest 2019. NO FEE! Middle Grade Fantasy stories 3000-5000 words. Theme: Voyagers. Judges include well-known authors including Elizabeth S. Craig. Payment in royalties for the anthology, published by Freedom Fox Press. Deadline September 4th.
ROMANCE WRITERS! Avon Books (a Big 5 imprint) is accepting unagented submissions for a short time. All subgenres of adult romance fiction are welcome, with one mandate: “HEA (happily ever after) or HFN (happy for now) conclusions are required.” Send manuscript, a three-to-five-page synopsis and 100-word author bio via the HarperCollins website by September 15.
33 Romance Publishers that don’t require an agent. Not going the self-publishing route? There’s still a way to get published without an agent.
7 PUBLISHERS FOR MEMOIRS! You don’t need an agent. From the good folks at Authors Publish.
A powerfully thoughtful analysis, Anne. Don’t know how long you stayed up putting this together but I’m very grateful.
I’m no expert on any of this, but my one thought is that in a way, the development of genre fiction is good news. There are literary versions of all the classic genres now, and I think it means that readings have grown up in their ability to empathize. I think older literary works were mainstream because, in part, people had no experience or permission to be serious about plots not set in the Alleged Real World. But now we can root for characters whether they’re wearing a spacesuit, or fighting monsters, or trying to save the world before prom.
Reading about Ancient History showed me that- sure they lived so long ago (which is the same as so far away), but people made choices and you can feel moved from studying their situation.
Will–Haha. I did spend more time than usual on this. Probably procrastinating getting onto the next book.
You’re right that each genre now has its “literary wing.” Fantasy can be anything from comic books to Tolkien. Mystery means anything from Patterson to Donna Tartt.
“Save the world before the prom” What a fun way of describing that particular flavor of YA.!
Priorities. Anne. YA is all about priorities.
I suspect genre came in because it made it easier to market to readers. If you pick up a book with an alien on the cover, it’s going to be science fiction. You’d be a disappointed reader if it turned out to be a mystery.
But genre’s also really hard to understand. Most people think they know and they really don’t. I took a workshop in genre and it was really eye opening. I was shocked at how much personal preferences as a reader influenced what I thought a genre was. As a result, I overbalanced on elements that a genre reader didn’t read for and didn’t have enough for what they did.
Getting the genre right is critical though because you’ll lose readers if it’s wrong. You can’t just slap an action scene at the end of a story and call it an action adventure thriller. You can’t just have a B story that’s a romance in your mystery and call it a romance. Readers have expectations for all these labels.
Linda– Yes, The proliferation of genre categories has everything to do with sales and marketing. Marketers can divide readers into demographic categories and market accordingly.
It’s true that genres have rigid rules. A love story isn’t Romance unless there’s a happy ending. A cozy mystery can’t have any coarse language. And the pacing needs to follow certain formulas to keep readers happy in each genre.
Wow, this is so true. But some of us just fall in between genres. My stuff was published as fantasy because it has magic in it, but it’s actually academic satire for people who realize how funny department meetings can be… I have never figured out how to market around this.
The down side of ‘write what you want to read,’ but as Anne points out we authors of academic fiction are mostly making our livings by teaching rather than writing — thank goodness!
Patricia–Satire is even more problematic than other genres. You end up getting shelved with exactly what you’re making fun of. Several of my books are satires of the publishing industry. They also make fun of chick lit. So where to the books go? Into the chick lit section. Sigh.
A satire of academia doesn’t have to be academic fiction. A lot of academics love mysteries and thrillers. They might like fantasy too, especially if the people turning into toads are the members of the tenure committee. 🙂
Marketing to colleges might boost sales, but I know that’s a tough road. Your book intrigues me, though…
Learned a lot from this one, Anne! Thank you. To be honest, in the crime world (writing, of course!) I don’t know anyone who is doing well, who is self-published. Our market seems to be newspaper and periodical-review driven, rather than blog-driven. Could be the age of the readers. I know several very good writers who used to be trad published, who went indie after a publisher went under, and have yet to recover their costs (and are quite shocked by this.) I should mention that by indie I mean self-published, not small publisher. I adore small publishers. On the other hand, I know a few romance writers who are doing nicely by self-publishing. Maybe it depends on the genre?
Melodie–It’s a sad fact that if you write for an older demographic, it’s very tough to make it as an indie. Many of my older friends say they would never read a self-published book. And a lot of crime novels are sold to older people.
The exception is cozies, especially witchy paranormal cozies. They seem to do well for indie authors. That may be because the readers are voracious, like Romance readers.
Melodie, I think it is a case of discoverability and having a quality product. I write a crime fiction series and from what I can tell, many of my readers are mystery lovers of a certain age. They enjoy spending time in Facebook groups talking about mysteries and on Goodreads. From what I can tell, none seem to know and/or care that they are reading a self-published author but are invested in the characters.
I agree with Carmen Amato. I know lots of indie mystery writers who are thriving. I’m happy with my indie career writing historical mysteries, and most of my readers are over 40. Actually, I think most of them are retired! Maybe your friends have given up too soon. It takes time to build an audience for the more pointy-headed mysteries, but then that used to be true for all solid mid-list authors. Keep publishing, keep reaching out for those readers, and if your books are good, you will do much better than you would have if there were still traditional publishers willing to publish for smaller markets.
Hi. Long-time reader, first-time commenter.
I more or less came to this same conclusion recently. I wasn’t consciously trying to write a literary novel, but I think I might have been. It was a mashup of genres, which didn’t help. Based on the feedback I was getting, and also based on the things I’ve read here, I decided to rework my manuscript so that it’s a more obviously a genre work.
I’ve already started, and while it means more work, I believe this is closer to what I wanted all along. So thanks for this post.
Hi Rich *waves*. You’re not alone. I did exactly the same thing. I had been reading literary novels for years, so my writing tended to be literary. I sort of leaned it toward women’s fiction, but not the standard type. Then I threw in some dead bodies, so I was writing a mystery…sort of.
It took a good editor to make me tear that mess apart and turn it into a good mystery.
Best of luck in your new genre-ing.
Excellent post, as always! I hadn’t realized what had happened between the time I was last an avid reader (back in the 1970s) and the time I retired after a very active life at the UN and resumed my reading habits (in the early 2000s). I discovered the literary world had totally changed! And of course, you confirm this with ample details I knew nothing about.
Thanks so much, Anne, this is an eye-opener! And it goes a long way to explain the mediocre success my books had – not only do I suck (!) at e-marketing and self-promotion, but what I write never falls into neatly into a set “genre”. Just can’t keep to it, I kept straying (and probably disappointed or confused my readers).
It also comforts me in the decision I have taken in 2014 to hit the pause button with my fiction writing and engage in “explanatory” journalism at Impakter Magazine instead. Just to keep my writing skills honed…and get a few things off my chest too, particularly when I get overly irritated by the likes of Trump or Salvini here in Italy – he’s a mini-Trump!
I’m getting ready now to jump back into fiction writing – but this time it will be stories for children…We’ll see how it goes but I take your advice to heart: I shall most definitely not self-publish and will look for a publisher when I’m ready!
Claude–I think a lot of us didn’t realize how much the market had fragmented. When indie publishing first appeared, it seemed to offer us the chance to write the book we really wanted to write–and not worry about industry rules. But it turned out those rules apply no matter how you’re published. Readers have certain expectations, and if they’re not met..they stop reading.
Congrats on all your success with your magazine and also on your new venture with children’s books. I think you’re wise to look for a good publisher, rather than face the uphill battle of marketing a genre that isn’t popular with the indie reader crowd.
Thanks Anne for the kind words – and as always, I appreciate your professionalism. And yes, I’m excited about my new project and happy to hear that you confirm I’m going down the right road, i.e. that I should look for a “good publisher” once my draft is up to par…
Anne—Smart and very very helpful. The beginning of the move to genre happened in the Sixties when paperback publishers “wagged the dog” of trad publishing. Selling expensive hard covers was (and is) hard.
Selling lots and lots of cheap paperbacks is much easier. Which meant that ppb publishers made more money and upped their revenues even further by purchasing ppb rights from hc publishers. Which, in turn, meant that hc publishers—knowing where the $$$ were and not being fools—increasingly published with an eye to big money rights sales.
The rights directors of hc publishers had lots of clout because they knew how to pit soft cover publishers against each other to generate lucrative bidding wars. One of the first really big sales was of Mario Puzo’s “The Godfather” made by Putnam’s brilliant rights director, the late Clyde Taylor. $400K in 1969-70 (~3 million today) was A Very Big Deal!
Ruth–I was hoping you’d add your expertise to my post. I didn’t know this, but it makes perfect sense! Hardcover publishers would only acquire what would sell in paperback a year later. And paperback readers tend to be genre readers. There’s the motivation right there.
I had no idea there were major bidding wars for paperback rights, but now I see that’s probably where the big money was coming in.
Thanks for sharing your expert knowledge!
This is one of THE best posts I’ve read. I did not know any of this so it is very informative, especially how things have changed throughout the years. Wow. And I just wrote a non-romance YA and didn’t even know it had a label! Ha! Thank you for all of this information, Anne.
Patricia–I hope this post will help new writers who may be encouraged to take the wrong path for what they ultimately want to write.
YA is a huge umbrella–and it can encompass any genre at all. But because it’s YA, it may be much more publishable than the same genre written for adults.
Fascinating post, Anne. We humans seem to like to label things, categorize things, break them down & down & down until we need special instruments to even know they are there. No surprise the literary world does similarly. Since I write YA, I read mostly YA, & I truly appreciate looking through my options at the bookstore or library & being a contemporary fiction nestled up against sci-fi, leaning against dystopian zombie romance. The more generalized shelving helps my broaden my reading. Still, I see why adult fiction is getting broken into smaller & smaller categories. Keep up the good work.
CS–Humans have always named things. The Bible tells us that Eve named the animals and plants in Eden. But I think there’s an accelerated push to label things in the e-age. That makes it easier to have “target demographics” for marketing.
But most of us don’t want to be targets. We want to be individuals with freedom to make our own choices.
Thanks for pointing out the rich choice of books available in the YA section, where they don’t have to be further separated by genre.
The thing I need to learn to do is to stop using multiple genres in the same book!
Icy–Me too! I was happy when I discovered the use of the word “elements.” “Mystery with romantic elements.” Women’s fiction with mystery elements.” Then you or your publisher can usually find an Amazon category that will work for both..
Stopped mainstream fiction the second that I’d graduated high school in 1983. And I absolutely loathe literary fiction. Always wanted to take a creative writing class, if only to learn what I haven’t been able to glean from fellow genre/pulpy writers and excellent writing blogs like this.
G. B. Reading in your genre is a great way to educate yourself in how to write that genre. Creative Writing courses can be very helpful too. Sometimes you can get very good ones though a local college extension program or adult school. .
I don’t read much mainstream or literary. Always been drawn to the genre fiction. I like knowing what I’m getting. And I guess I would be shocked at the genres now featured in book stores…
Alex–The categories in shops haven’t changed as much at Amazons, which change quarterly. There used to a category for “cat cozies”, but now there’s only “animal cozies” So it’s definitely fluid. We do need a genre, but we also need to be flexible in how to categorize it. Although “hard sci-fi” is probably still “hard sci-fi” and will be for a while.
Anne, as an addendum to the discussion here, there’s a school of thought that says an author needs to “train” the Amazon algorithm to recognize an author’s genre so that their books get served up in the correct search results. The more your book is purchased by those who also buy books in the same genre, the more your book will become visible in searches related to that genre. And we all know that ranking higher in search results is key to sales.
With this premise in mind, everything becomes geared to standing out in that genre–keywords, descriptions, editorial reviewers, etc.
This genre-centric sales funnel is going to make clear genre categorization more and more esential for authors going forward. BUT if the algorithm is trainable by author–not by book–does this penalize authors who write in multiple genres? Modern marketing is hard . . .
Carmen–Marketing sure is hard! Especially since once you learn the rules of Amazon’s categories…bam! They’ve changed them and it’s back to square one. But I admire the authors who know how to navigate Amazon’s algos efficiently.
What a brilliant post!!!
As a reader, Anne, genre, categories, tags etc all help me locate what I want and it’s almost always genre fiction, but drilled down to be very specific. So I’m quite glad that ‘genre fiction’ has developed.
But as an indie writer with books to publish, the whole thing is a nightmare that one must go through in order to springboard one’s title.
It takes real skill and understanding of a marketplace to effectively label one’s titles. Take for example – Passage, a book I released 6 weeks ago. It’s about a 60+woman’s journey through grief to finding there is healthy, happy and active life beyond the death of her partner. Her late husband is a character within the novel but this is not a romance. Her dog is a humorous counterpart to her dark moments but this is not chick lit. The language is poetic and the thoughts through the narrative are philosophical but it’s not literary. So I feel a little damned if I do and damned if I don’t.
Add to that the fact that it’s turned me into a cross-genre writer and I am a marketing nightmare.
There is brilliant advice out there to help indies position their novels but not every book can be fitted to a template, so there are times when I actually long for the 70’s and 80’s when the choices were simple and straightforward.
Thank you again this inciteful post today – my little grey cells are now ticking over!
Prue–Congrats on the launch of “Passage!” It takes courage to move from an easy-to-identify genre like Historical Fiction to something completely new.
But I do think there’s a good category for the new book: Upmarket Women’s Fiction. Sometimes called “Book Club Fiction.” I don’t know if you have exactly the same categories in Australia, but I think you could comp your book to Jodi Picoult and LIane Moriarty. Good women’s fiction is about a woman’s journey and life choices and I think your book sounds as if it fits snuggly in that category. Best of luck with it!
(And thanks for letting me help name it! )
This is definitely an area of struggle for me, as I consider myself ‘mainstream fiction’. My favorite authors were masters of the non-genre. Yes, there is a strong romantic element, and there is adventure, but my best stories are slice-of-life-kicked-up-to-11. Personally, I wouldn’t mind being tagged as ‘bookclub club fiction’, because, well, sales. Duh. So, how does a pre-published author such as me get noticed in this brave new world?
Dominique–“Book Club fiction” is a category agents accept, even though it isn’t official. If your main characters are women, then you can fit comfortably into “women’s fiction” or “upmarket women’s fiction.” You might also want to stress the setting, since that’s important to Amazon. Best of luck!
I studied writing (MA) at a small uni where both literary and genre fiction writing was encouraged. The result is that I seem to be a hybrid of the two. I love both story (especially romance-flavoured mystery and suspense) and good prose/characterisation. Alas, I also find that I have distinct genre-butterfly tendencies. I get bored and want to flit around and write different things. Or I want to combine three genres in one novel. I also like aspects of both indie and traditional publishing. I get this is a bad thing marketing wise. Sigh. I’ve written one YA book but I’m not sure that’s me long term. What is the best solution for someone like me? Other than take up butterfly collecting ;).
Susan–It is possible to be a “butterfly” and still establish a brand. If you’re not sure about YA, sit on that one for a while and write what you really want to write. If you’re drawn to Romantic Suspense, try writing it with good literary-quality writing, Then add your historical or sci-fi or magical realism to it. It can still be Romantic Suspense, but with “elements” of other genres. Then if you want to publish a Romantic Suspense novel for YA audiences, you’ll still be a Romantic Suspense author.
Not that there’s anything wrong with butterfly collecting. 🙂
I went to Goddard, for my BA. One of the dorms has a hallway we likened to the one from the Shining. Lots of “unexplained phenomenon” on campus! Also, Dave Dellinger gave an awesomely fiery speech at my graduation. I love writing in genre fiction!
Willow–Goddard produces some wonderful writers. It’s not the only college with a low residence MFA program, but it’s considered one of the best.
Those old East Coast colleges do harbor ghosts. I’m pretty sure my dorm at Bryn Mawr had several. 🙂
Anne, I’m really glad you brought up this subject, as someone working on my first novel for publication purposes (hopefully!) In some respects I’m probably similar to Susan J Bruce above. On deciding to learn all about the craft in depth (and also about self-publishing because I’m a bit Lower Cretaceous these days I guess, and doubt trad-pubs would take me on), I was both bemused and a little dismayed by the whole genre issue and spent ages reading up on it.
I’m in the UK, and from the age of 13 or so we were studying Dickens, Austen, the Bronte Sisters and Shakespeare at school. After university I decided from that point on I wanted to read for fun and escapism, so I chose whatever books took my fancy. That was a wide variety, including the novels by John Fowles that you mentioned. I recently replaced my old paperback copy of The Magus as it was falling to bits. But it never occurred to me that such a book would be described as “literary”. Same with The Secret History (a bit OT but I was interested to read online that some people thought, as I did, that Donna Tartt may have read The Magus and been influenced by it).
I’m a big fan of Tolkien but, at the time it was published, LOTR was actually slagged off by the critics for not being literary enough!
I had my preferred reading experiences, but never sought to categorise them. For instance, I think you may have read A Fatal Inversion by Barbara Vine (Ruth Rendell). How would you categorise that — literary or not?
I decided in the end that my own novel would likely fall into Amazon’s Mystery/Thriller/Suspense category. But it isn’t a traditional whodunit type of murder mystery, and IMHO it isn’t edge-of-your-seat enough to be considered a thriller. It has a strong romance storyline, but again I don’t think it could be considered a traditional romance. So I suppose it will be mystery/suspense with a strong romantic element.
I just had to laugh when you said in one of your posts not so long ago that new writers either do or should normally stick to a fairly simple storyline with just a handful of characters. Ha! Because of the setting and plot, quite a few characters are needed, and yes ….. the storyline is a little complex and ambitious! Oh well …. (apologies for the length of this comment!)
Shire–First let me say that when you’re working on a first novel you should play around with all genres and voices and points of view. Once you’re published, you’ll be stuck in a slot that it’s hard to get out of, so do your experimenting now. You may end up with pieces of several novels you can polish up later on.
But I also want to emphasise that “literary” is a category, not a value judgement. Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine wrote mystery novels. Very good ones. But you’ll find her in the mystery section of the bookstore. Daphne Du Maurier wrote Romantic Suspense. In fact, she pretty much invented it. You’ll find her in the suspense section.
Genres have some pretty strict guidelines, so when you’re ready to decide on a genre, check them out. Here’s a guest post on genre guidelines written for us by UK author Roz Morris. https://selfpublishingsites.com/2016/11/novel-genre-ya-mg-na-adult/
And another from our own Ruth Harris, who worked in the business for many years. https://selfpublishingsites.com/2014/05/know-your-genre-tips-and-secrets-fro/
Best of luck with your book!
I see lots of authors experimenting with cross-genre novels. There was even a panel at this year’s Boskone about that topic.
Your post illuminates the issue: how to market to readers and meet their expectations.
Great post, Anne.
~Ingmar Albizu
Ingmar–Cross-genre novels are great, because they inject new life into old tropes. But you usually have to choose one to be the shelf where your novel goes. I write romantic comedies that are also mysteries. They’re much more mystery than romance, so they go on the mystery shelf. But I also have done some joint promos with rom-com writers that helped me reach new readers.
Darn it, I hadn’t really noticed the expiration of Mainstream Fiction until…I wrote my two Just Lucky novels as Mainstream fiction…something to be enjoyed by adults of both genders. Publishers insisted on labeling the first book a Romance, and then rejected it because it did not have an HEA or HFN ending. Finally a small publisher in Canada liked it, but it still doesn’t sell, despite the fact that I did achieve my aim. The books are enjoyable for both genders. I call them now Romance books that men can enjoy as much as women.
I liked some non-genre fiction very much: Catch-22, MASH, Semi-Tough, and all of Vonnegut’s work. But I’ve been primarily a reader of science fiction and fantasy, and my other two novels are definitely fantasy.
Fred–I hear you. I had exactly the same problem. My first publisher marketed my books as chick lit, but my most ardent fans were men. So my current publisher markets them as mysteries. But people who want a “just the facts ma’am” police procedural are sadly disappointed. Sigh. We can only write what’s in our heads, and it’s not always formulaic. So we have to be the people to break new ground.
I know all the above. I write mainstream fiction. Indie. And I don’t want a traditional publisher.
I’ll figure out the marketing one of these days, but I want exactly what the traditional publishers think they have locked up: educated adult readers of both genders who want a story that is deep, connected, layers, and well-written. With characters, plots, and themes that are universal. And language that is polished and perfected and literary in its quality.
Because mainstream fiction – such as the fiction written by the authors you listed – is too important to leave to the big publishers: they can publish such a small amount of it, and rely heavily on the same tired tropes and the same authors.
Indies like me can write about anything they want, and have taken the time to learn the craft. We don’t have to please agents and editors who need ‘the same only different’ because the think it’s the only thing that sells.
I don’t write YA, NA, Women’s fiction, or genre. I write mainstream fiction.
Alicia–Keep up the good fight! I know there are plenty of readers out there who want Mainstream Fiction. And it has almost completely evaporated from the bookstore shelves. But as I said, Catherine Ryan Hyde is making a huge success of it publishing through Amazon imprints–so the audience is there. It’s all about finding out how to connect with them.
The problem with Amazon imprints is that they are harder to submit to than traditional agents and publishers!
I think they look for you – when their data tells them you’re already a winner. And have done most of the hard work. And have EARNED your attention from the big A.
Tricky getting to that point without any assistance. The work being good does nothing for you if you can’t find the potential readers and persuade them to read a page or two.
I wasn’t suggesting they are easy to get into. They are the Holy Grail for agents right now, because advances are higher than Big 5.
But if you read the later part of my post, I talk about how Amazon Imprints have a category called “American Fiction” that seems to be similar to “Mainstream Fiction” and there may be ones for each country.
That may pave the way for more Mainstream to be read and published and maybe indies will get the benefit of that.. I used Catherine Ryan Hyde’s books as an example. Check out the section of this post with the header “If you Write What Used to be Called Mainstream Fiction, is Self-Publishing the Answer?”
Thanks for this article, it has certainly made me think about how the brand my fiction. I can see I have been using the wrong category and this is probably working against me. Thanks for a most enlightening post, I will read the references you have given about mainstream fiction.
Naomi–If you’ve been calling your book “mainstream” when querying, yes, if you can find a different category, go for it. Good luck!
Thank you for this informative post. I hadn’t realized, until this past year, just how important genre was in self-publishing. It’s everything, and I’m keeping that very much in mind with my next book.
Thank you also for the mention of Turtle Writers. They sound like a group that’s perfect for me right now. Thank you!
Amy–It’s true that the people who read self-published books are mostly genre readers in the old fashioned sense. They generally want fast-paced stories that don’t deviate too much from the conventions of the genre. Keeping that in mind will help you build an audience.
The Turtle Writer tweets are inspirational and you’ll find yourself in good company.
So what if you write in a genre, but you’re playing with its conventions — as I imagine many genre authors do in this world of more variety in genre fiction? I’m writing a romance that plays with traditional gender dynamics. Couldn’t write a book per month if my life depended on it, but I love writing romance, and I want to be successful. What do people who are trying to write more complex but still genre-y genre fiction do?
Elizabeth–I wrestle with that problem every day, since I write very cerebral comedy-satire-mysteries. I’m with a small press who have been willing to experiment with different ways of presenting my work. Right now they’re considering rebranding me with illustrated covers that stress the comedy rather than the mystery. I’m not sure if that will work. I fear that will appeal more to female readers and discourage the men who are some of my biggest fans.
The truth is that when you’re writing something that’s new and “breakthrough’ it’s hard to figure out how to brand yourself. Some things that might help: choose the genre that your target reader is likely to pick up.
Is it mostly a thriller, but has a lot of comedy? Call it a thriller, but make sure the word “comedy” is in the metadata. Or maybe you’ve got a thriller based on some well-researched data about WW2. Call it a historical thriller and make sure the cover art and metadata reflect the fact this is serious historical drama. Is it a mystery, but one of the characters is a time-traveling alien? Call it Sci-Fi and stress the mystery elements in the product description.
I other words, choose the most dominant genre and embellish it later. 🙂
Fascinating overview… The amount of data Amazon has… they could probably bring these back if they really wanted.
Adrijus–I think in a way Amazon is already bringing it back in a way, calling it “American fiction.” They just have to have a similar category for every country. Or…yeah. They could just put in a category called “mainstream fiction.”
Since we live in Global era, I don’t think it’s smart to make them country names.. I’d rather have Mainstream Fiction and that would not make readers feel like it’s irrelevant to them due to country difference. But I may be wrong 🙂
Adrijus–I agree we all should be looking at a global audience, (If we have a globe to live on in the next few years.)
But I was expanding on Amazon’s category, hoping they’d grow from there and finally arrive back at “Mainstream.”.
Thank you so much for that analysis of why I find it impossible to have a conversation about my writing with the much-lauded (and excellent) Writing Centre in my city.
They are still holding to standards of excellence that belong to ‘serious’ fiction, although they do like Crime. But don’t dare to go to a workshop thinking you might learn something when your basically scifi novel has a crime element to it.
Of course, not all the tutors are like that. But the leader is.
I do so admire all those indie authors with local writing groups that have exhibitions, get-togethers, book fairs and so on that cater for genre fiction!
PS my best attempt at genre pegging for my first series is MG-fantasy-history-science fiction-crossover. I stuck to SF for the second one!
Jemima–Sorry you have snooty (and out of date) people running your Writing Centre. If you sleuth around, you may find some more genre-oriented writers hanging around and maybe you can start your own group.
And since you write children’s fiction, look into the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. They might have a chapter near you. Fantastic group.
The great thing about writing for young people is there are fewer rules. So you can definitely have a MG book with all those elements. No problem. Look around online for a Children’s book critique group if you can’t find one in real life.
And as for Sci-Fi–If your locals don’t know that Sci Fi is one of the most respected genres out there, they haven’t heard of Kurt Vonnegut or Margaret Atwood. So stick your nose up in the air and out-snob them. 🙂 .
I was with you right up until you said this: “They’re looking for the fun series-novels that can be gobbled up quickly.”
i absolutely disagree. Now if you write fiction that is more serious than a beach read you may not have sales as large as the biggest romance writer out there, but you can do very well, better, in my opinion, than you would going trade. I know whereof I speak.
J. R. There’s always the exception that proves the rule. Congratulations to you!!
I’m not an expert in the literary publishing world, but I’m a long-time writer that’s finally ready to publish and I’ve been dipping my toes in the publishing world to try and see what would be the best approach for me to take. This post really resonates with me because I have come to the same conclusions. I’d definitely say that the writer who’s stuck in the middle between genre and literary definitely fits my material. I’m halfway through a novel that would definitely be a book-club publication (it’s about being a Mormon girl in Idaho, and all that entails). So I’ll try traditional publishing with this novel first. But I’ve also been thinking, just by watching what is popular on Wattpad and such, that I should write some pulp materiel and push that through self publishing. This may sound a bit strange, but how marketable is the erotic genre right now? Sounds a bit strange, but I think it would be fascinating (and potentially marketable) to write some erotic works that infuse some literary power into the genre.
Sky–I just fished your comment out of spam. I have no idea why the elves put some comments in spam and not others.
It sounds to me as if you’re going to have have a very marketable women’s fiction “book club” novel. Traditional publishers should be very interested.
Wattpad is an ecosystem unto itself. Its readers don’t necessarily buy trad pubbed books, so you can’t really use them as an indicator of what will sell in the greater marketplace.
Lots of literary authors have written erotica to make money. Anne Rice did. But if you’re just starting out and aspire to a mainstream career, I wouldn’t recommend it right now. A lot of the digital publishers of erotica from the early part of the decade have gone under as “50 Shades” has faded. Self-published erotica still sells, of course, but there is major competition. As a beginner, you’d be competing with pros, and there’s a learning curve in any genre.
Keep on with your women’s book club fiction and you may be one of Oprah’s book club picks one day!
Thank you for explaining what I sensed was the case as I finally get serious about writing. I love mainstream fiction and have always wanted to write it. Authors like Maeve Binchy, Marcia Willett, Joanna Trollope, Anne Tyler, Elizabeth Berg. I’m noticing the new categories on Amazon such as Women’s Domestic Life Fiction, Sisters Fiction, Mothers and Children Fiction and wondering who is publishing in those categories – trads or indies. Or both maybe? Will check out the Turtle Writers you mention. I’m also eager to keep reading your posts – I’ve only recently discovered the blog and it’s just as good as having a great book to read because I’m learning that anything I read here will be meaty! Thank you!
Caryn–All those writers are categorized as “women’s fiction”. Some are “literary women’s fiction” (Anne Tyler) but if you write in a similar vein, you are going to do just fine. You have a genre! Why women’s literary fiction isn’t included in regular “literary fiction” I don’t know (well, I kinda do. It’s called sexism) but in the end, it’s not a bad thing. Women’s fiction sells much better than “literary fiction.” Welcome to the blog!
And Happy New Year!
Still getting the hang of commenting, so I’m a few weeks late. This is good news! Thank you!
This is a very insightful and eye-opening post. I wish I had come across it before trying to self-publish two satirical novels (Investing in Vain and The Cougar Candidate) that don’t seem to fit well in any genre.
I came of age in the era of mainstream fiction and started writing many years later in my retirement without understanding how mainstream fiction had been pigeon-holed into oblivion by genre fiction. Satires like Catch-22 don’t really have a place in this world anymore, which makes marketing extremely hard. Now I’m trying to figure out whether to write a third satire that probably won’t sell, or compromise by switching to a genre that I don’t particularly care for (like thrillers or fantasy). I’m leaning toward the latter.
Will–I feel your pain. Literally. My first published novel was a satire. My poor publisher had no idea what do do with it and finally marketed it as a quirky thriller. A second publisher tried Romantic Suspense. The third called it a mystery. But the book never sold a lot. What I think might have worked better would be to copy the style of a cover of another great satire–say something by Carl Hiaasen or Terry Pratchett if you slip into some sci-fi or fantasy. Then look for the Amazon categories that those satirists use. Carl Hiaasen is still writing bitter, hilarious satire, so it can be done.
Hi Anne,
It appears I’ll be the first commentor in awhile.
Really an excellent post, really made me think. Much of what you say confirms what I’ve long believed. I write “literary” fiction because that’s what I’ve always read. I wouldn’t know how to write a mystery, nor would it be any good if I did.
But I fall between the cracks. I don’t have an MFA. In fact, I don’t have a degree. I have however, published one book of literary fiction, which
I’m quite proud of. I’m looking for a small press for my current novel, but it’s tough sledding. Luckily for me, I have no illusions of making a living at this (unlike my former career, where I made a living as a nonfiction writer for three decades). Agents are likewise a lost cause for guys like me. And self publishing is out, based on your analysis and mine as well.
So I keep plugging away. Perhaps labeling my manuscript as upmarket or commercial? I don’t care what they call it as long as I’m proud of the final draft.
Thanks for a well thought out piece.
Dave–I can relate. A small press is the best bet for a literary writer. I started out writing literary fiction for the same reason. It was what I read most of the time. When I landed with my current publisher, the editor had me rewrite my “literary” stuff as mystery/suspense. It seemed to work. But they sure don’t sell as well as my mystery series.
If you do query agents, I’d call it “book club” or ‘upmarket”. (See my post What is Upmarket Fiction to see if you can shoehorn your books in that category. https://selfpublishingsites.com/2021/10/what-is-upmarket-fiction/