When I was a child, Kool-Aid was the go-to beverage of choice, and at the time it came in a wonderful six flavors: Cherry, Grape, Lemon-Lime, Orange, Raspberry, and Strawberry.
Today, however, it comes in so many flavors it’s hard to keep track of. Among them, some are different variations of the same flavor: Cherry, Blastin’ Berry Cherry, Blue Moon Cherry, Scary Black Cherry.
Much like how Kool-Aid has so many flavors branching out from the parent flavor of Cherry, book genres have evolved the same way with sub-genres.
So today I’m going to explain the differences between genres, sub-genres, and demographic, especially when you’re querying to agents or publishers.
First of all, what is a genre?
Genre is a label that characterizes what a reader can expect in a work of literature or nonfiction. Some examples of major genres include comedy, horror, romance, or fantasy.
A sub-genre, however, is a subcategory within a genre. For example, steampunk or cyberpunk are generally considered sub-genres of science fiction. Similarly, high fantasy or fairy tales are considered sub-genres of fantasy.
You might think to yourself “Why does it matter if I categorize my novel by its sub-genre?”
It’s simple. Agents, editors and publishers don’t care.
Let me elaborate on that by offering a bit of perspective.
Most agents won’t get back to you for 4-6, and sometimes even 12 weeks after you’ve queried them. Usually this is because they have that many queries to work through before they get to yours, on top of working with the clients they already have. To streamline the process they expect certain aspects of your query to be made as clearly and concisely as possible. In the case of your detailing your genre, rather than using sub-genres like opposites attract, or superhero, simply using the parent genre of romance or fantasy is preferred. The rest will be self-explanatory. Only distributors like Amazon really bother to concern themselves with the list of sub-genres, and that’s only because it enables readers to browse through their libraries more easily.
Remember, agents, editors and publishers shouldn’t have to guess your genre. If you don’t know your genre than you might as well be advertising that you don’t read.
The other thing you need to be aware of is that demographic is not a genre. When querying, while it is important to list the demographic your novel is catering to, it’s important to note that an age group does not tell anything beyond the expected reading level or depths of the story you’ve written. If I were to tell you my book is a young adult (YA) novel about a young woman who ran into cupid, you might be quick to conclude that it’s a romance novel. But what if when reading you find out that Cupid’s arrows had been tampered with, breaking hearts instead? Then it would be more fantasy.
It’s for this reason that it’s encouraged to include both in your query. In the instance of the example above I would describe it as YA/Fantasy, and nothing else.
Finally, it’s important to keep your genre as simple as possible. Some books are genre defying. Harry Potter, for example, is a mix of genres comprising of Fantasy Fiction, Drama, Young adult fiction, Mystery, Thriller, and so on and so forth. While it is important to know the genres of your work, you need to remember that too many genres will make it too hard to sell. And if you can’t sell it, then publishers won’t buy it. Always try to focus on the largest genre that your book falls under, and simply advertise it such. Harry Potter = Fantasy.
As always, this is coming from someone who himself is learning the ins and outs himself, stumbling clumsily along just as the rest of you. But for every mistake I make, an important lesson is learned. And each lesson I learn, I will share.
Remember, never give up and one day you will publish.
Dream – Imagine – Create
A.
A Life Imagined 