Having recently decided not to represent a number of writers for the same reason, I’m reminded how important it is to know what book category or genre a manuscript belongs in. Or as we talk about it in publishing: Where does your book fit on a bookstore’s shelves? Yeah, yeah, I know we’re pretty much talking about virtual shelves nowadays. But for the aspiring author, it doesn’t matter which shelf, just so it’s on a shelf.
Why Book Categories Matter
Sometimes a writer creates a manuscript that’s neither beast nor fowl. It’s not exactly a memoir that centers on grief yet it’s not exactly a prescriptive book on grief. Hello! It needs to be true to its “kind,” to be one thing or the other…
- so that the agent who reads it knows what it is;
- the editor who receives it from the agent knows what it is;
- so the marketing folks can explain in the catalog, back cover copy and press releases what it is;
- so the sales staff can tell the bookstore buyer what it is;
- so it ends up on the shelf where the appropriate reader will look for it.
If the cycle breaks down at the writer’s stage, it’s unlikely to make it to the end of cycle. Those writers whom I chose not to represent? They created manuscripts that didn’t fit in any category but tried to span an unspannable chasm between book categories.
How to Know Where Your Book Fits
If you’re lucky enough to have a local bookstore, might I suggest you mozy down for a visit? Wander around and look for books similar to yours. Where are they shelved? And take a peek at the back cover. Publishers have standard book categories that tell bookstores where to shelve the title. The answer to your question is printed on the backs of other books.
Barring a visit to a bookstore, a trip to a library could be helpful. Follow the same exercise.
Amazon is the best place to find “like” books, but sadly Amazon doesn’t always show the back covers of books when you “Look inside,” as Amazon suggests. Nonetheless, if you find books that seem to be related to yours in terms of a category, you can then look on publishing houses’ websites and note how the categories they place similar books in.
Know Thy Book Category
Once you’ve found the best label for your manuscript, don’t skip this next step: Know what qualities are true of books that fit in the category.
If you discover your sci-fi doesn’t actually fit in the category because the romance thread is so strong it looks like sci-fi but self-identifies as romance, you have created a manuscript that does not match the formula for either book category. That translates into your book not likely to be available on a virtual or real-life bookshelf.
My point is simple but important: Choose a category and make sure your book stays true to the qualities necessary to neatly fit–smackdab in the center–of that category.
What category does your present work fit into? How did you decide?
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Finding the Right Title
Yeah, yeah, I know the story,
and tell it to myself.
My book, it needs a category
to land on the store shelf.
That it’s ’bout Amish Amazons
who fight zombie infestation
doesn’t mean that it does not belong
in Christian inspiration.
It can stand with Screwtape
(Clive Staples would not mind)
to help it into selling-shape
so eager folk might find
that my hardy rawboned bonnet-chicks
might be the best of reading picks.
Great insight, Janet! Thanks!
I’m unsure how specific of a category agents would like to know about my book.
For example, on Amazon I looked at my comp titles and there are several categories my novels would fall under. I plan to pitch at a conference this fall so I definitely want to clearly represent my book to an agent or editor.
I write inspirational split time fiction (though of course it is also called time-slip fiction, dual-timeline, etc.) in the style of Melanie Dobson, Jaime Jo Wright and Kristy Cambron. The novel I will pitch is set in present day Louisiana and Germany during WWII. The backup novel I have to pitch is set in present day Tennessee and England and 1912 England and India.
The following Amazon categories could apply to my WWII novel — Historical Christian romance fiction, Historical WWII Fiction, WWII historical fiction, Historical German fiction, Religious Historical Fiction, Christian Historical Fiction, 20th Century Historical Romance…
So how exactly would you recommend categorizing my novel? As an inspirational split time novel involving WWII Germany? Thanks!!
Morgan, thanks for giving enough of a description for me to understand the possibilities. If I were you, I’d describe if just as you suggested: inspirational split time novel with WWII Germany being the historical setting.
Thanks for the advice and reassurance, Janet! Good to know. I’ll definitely do that.
I am currently writing boy-centric middle grade contemporary fantasy! I love romance and YA for girls, but after reading so many amazing MG stories out loud to my three sons and having one of my sons twelve-year-old friends read my RomComs and tell me that he made something from my book in Minecraft because he loved it … I realized that even when I wrote romance or YA … it read a bit like a MG adventure. Lots of slapstick humor and crazy adventures. So, I think it was my writing style that led me to try MG since I appeared to be trying to add middle grade elements to other genres anyway.
“What category does your present work fit into? How did you decide?”
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I’m currently working on a New Testament era novel (11,000 words in), so I guess it would be Bible historical. It is the third in a series (the fourth already written and published). This was the next logical book to work on to fill in a gap between books 2 and 4. It is set in the years 66-71 A.D., during the first Jewish War. Events of the war are weaved into the lives of the main characters.