Ah, how I envy romance authors. And sci-fi authors. And horror authors. And fantasy authors. Authors of any genre, really.
I can’t even imagine what it must be like to upload your book to amazon and have amazon ask you “What genre is this?” and be able to click the drop-down menu and say definitively, “This one!” When authors first start out, the first piece of advice that’s almost universally proffered is “Pick a winning genre and stick with it.” And that makes perfect sense. It’s the best way to make money as an author. You can join all sorts of writing support groups that focus on that genre. And it helps you stay in your lane. Unfortunately for me, when I started out, nobody said diddly to me about genre. I knew the novel I wanted to write. It was Typo Squad. I was going to write it and that was that. When I finished Typo Squad, I was really happy with it. It was good. It was unique. It said exactly what I’d wanted it to say. So I said, “Here you go, amazon. Sell this for me, would you? There’s a nice unfeeling billon-dollar corporation.” And, of course, amazon said to me, “What genre is this?” And I had no idea. The overarching theme of it was humor. So was humor the genre? No, not exactly. I mean, it wasn’t Totally Tasteless Jokes Volume III or a Dilbert collection. So then I thought, “Well, in addition to being funny, there’s also action and adventure in it.” But then, wouldn’t you know it? Action and Adventure are two different genres. So I started digging deeper. Typo Squad is set in a world where typos are lethal to 98% of the population. Therefore, it’s set in a different reality. Would that make it fantasy then? No, because then it would be lumped in with swords and dragons and whatnot. Would it technically be sci-fi? A parallel universe? No, I think the sci-fi fans would reject it outright. What was my poor little book? Ultimately, with “alternate reality typo adventure” not being a genre – yet – I categorized it under humor. Is that hurting the book? Helping it? I have no idea. But to all you authors just starting out on your journey, I will say this – look at the genre options on amazon and pick one before you start. You will thank me. |