Where do I belong?

Is there a genre or sub-genre for "men's romance?"

Basically a story of a young man solving a business problem while making a few "conquests" along the way- until he finds true love.

Story doesn't seem to fit any of the standard categories.

That's cause it's not a category in a genre; it's general fiction.
There is a category of romance novels that have men as the main characters. Those are called (I think, but if I get this wrong let me know) hero-driven romance.

My most beloved former client Kari Dell wrote two of them. The most recent is Tangled in Texas. Notice the cover is just the cowboy, and while his shirt is unbuttoned, he's not shirtless, nor is he grasping a delightfully disheveled woman to his manly man chest.

If you're having a hard time figuring out category, there's nothing wrong with "commercial fiction."

More on category, cause you are really in a tizzy, I know

I have a client who is trying to figure out how to tag her books at Amazon.

There's a category for Police Procedural, of course. But what about when the Procedural part is done by an investigator -- and not a PI, but someone who works for a private firm that consults with the police and Homeland Security and other agencies around the world. So although the tone is light and similar to a cozy, the protag's a professional, very good at what she does, and entirely respectful of rules and boundaries. In a fresh twist in fiction, she defers to her boss and doesn't stake out on her own.


Do we have an acknowledged term for that? Investigator Procedural?

Categories are intended to help readers find other books they will like. Since I love Ed McBain's 87th Precinct novels, I might also like yours.  That your protagonist is not official police is less important than the fact the main character has a legit reason to investigate. In other, words NOT a librarian or zookeeper or philatelist solving crimes in her spare time.

Procedurals are also more a methodical-solve-the-case style plot than they are "and suddenly her evil twin sister turns up" (although Erle Stanley Gardiner used that double device more than once.)

You can always just use "crime novel" too.

But if you're looking to find readers, nothing beats "if you like Ed McBain, you'll like this" and "if you wonder why property values in Cabot Cover haven't dropped to zero, this book is for you."

And of course, look for similar books and see what categories they're in.  No use reinventing the wheel if someone has already gotten their hands grimy for you.

     

Metamorphosis

I am a very small-time published author (m/m erotic romance), a genre I originally stumbled into (seriously) so that I could have a publishing history in the hopes of one day getting an agent for my young adult material. While I have enjoyed writing m/m, I feel it is time to "move on", and have begun querying agents for one of my YA novels. Your September 5, 2015 blog post post about being reachable, however, has made me wonder if I shouldn't delete my m/m persona just yet, although I am eager to leave the old "me" behind and delete my Goodreads author page, my blog and my Facebook presence. I simply feel that clinging to my old pen name is holding me back from pursuing a possible future as an author of young adult novels, or perhaps even some of my more conventional romances. I'm at a crossroads, and wondering which way to go.


Basically, my question is thus: should I wait until I'm done querying so that potential agents can find me on the world wide web, or should I jump in with both feet, delete the past, and go after what I want? Even if I'm unsuccessful, I have no plans to go back to writing m/m, its just not where my heart (or muse) is. In fact, I'm not even sure if I should tell agents when I'm querying about my published work--do you think they would they hold it against me? Would you?

If you know you're moving on,  make the changeover now. Do so for the same reason you don't buy new curtains for an apartment you're leaving in two months.

Invest forward.

The post on Be Reachable meant you should be reachable NOW, not that I need to see what you did in the past. I want to talk to you about your NEW work, not have a discussion about your old work.  Time enough for that later.

A lot of people have publishing credentials they don't want to talk about. It's not a deal breaker at all.

While the subject matter may not be suitable to every taste, it's not like you're publishing stories about evil librarians which would be a total deal breaker.

More on how to figure out what agents represent

I have finished Signal (loved it), but am left puzzled by one thing. How is it you think you don’t rep speculative fiction? Oh, I know Patrick Lee and Jeff Somers write a fast-paced story that you could nudge over to thriller/suspense, but seriously. People are going to start putting two and two together, you know. If you sell it they will come – the queriers, I mean. Heck, I might even lead the charge.

Well, I don't represent speculative fiction cause I'm not really sure what it is.  I signed Patrick Lee for a book that I think of as a thriller. I pitched it as a thriller. It got published by an imprint of Harper that does science fiction. We sold enough copies that I know it sold to people who don't read science fiction.  Same with Runner. I pitched that as a thriller. It was marketed as a thriller.  If you think it's speculative fiction, I'm ok with that as long as you buy many many copies of the book.

And Jeff Somers was signed for a book called CHUM that isn't speculative fiction (whatever that is) and when I sold Electric Church I thought it was science fiction, or a dystopian thriller.

I make jokes about this by saying I sold dystopian by mistake, I thought it was something else.

Which is of course really funny until you're a writer trying to figure out what the hell I want to read.

Well, here's a suggestion: ignore category. Just send everything. I don't particularly care. I'll read pages from enticing queries no matter what category you place it in because I've learned that what I call it can be much different than what the editor calls it, or where it gets shelved after the marketing people take a whack at it.

This is why you do NOT start a query with "here's my speculative fiction novel." You start with the name of the protagonist and what's at stake. You reel the reader into the story FIRST, then close with what you think is the category (and half the time you're wrong, but I don't care about that either.)

The reason most people who write what you might call speculative fiction won't find a place on my list though is cause I've already got Patrick Lee and Jeff Somers, and those guys keep me pretty damn busy. Fortunately Brooks Sherman likes that kind of writing too, and he's got more room on his list than I do.

Storylines that are DOA?

I had the true joy of attending my first writers conference recently. I paid for my time at the pitch practice tables where I got to meet my first true-to-life literary agents.

The first agent seemed very closed door right from the get-go. We had 10 minutes with each agent and this one used 7 (and only 7) just to give me feedback about my query format. I was not expecting this agent to jump on my book, this was only a pitch practice, but the feedback comments on my subject were... rude. I'm not talkin' it just wasn't her type of book, but more like this agent thought I was trash for NOT writing the subjects they prefer. This agent is very vocal and opinionated online (not the agency's website) to their preferences to the point of stating "I wish the trend of fantasy and animal characters would just die."

This brings me to ask: are certain (fantasy) story lines dead? How would a writer know? And this is not just based on my own genre and findings.

Yikes! This agent sounds young, inexperienced and heady from the rarified air she's certain she's breathing in those lofty agent heights.

I have no idea if certain story lines are dead in any category. Neither does anyone else. What agents do know is what isn't selling, and what they're tired of reading.  That doesn't mean you have to pay any attention because if someone does a new twist on an old trope, and does it well, it's a whole new ball game.

And let me say this about agent pronouncements like this. We know a lot of stuff but we aren't infallible.  Some of us who've been around long enough to see trends come and go realize that what's not hot today is what we're all looking for tomorrow and it's really REALLY shortsighted to make sure a writer will never query you again cause you were rude to them at a writing conference.

Query Question: more on genre and category

I've completed a novel that I would describe as fitting into the genre of "women's contemporary novel", However, I think the best description for it is "book club fiction." Is it okay for me to describe my manuscript as book club fiction? For example, "One of your clients INSERT NAME suggested I contact you regarding AWESOME TITLE, my 76,000 word work of book club fiction."?

Well, since there's no genre called "women's contemporary novel" you should call it almost anything else up to and including cowgirl haiku. Book Club fiction seems as good as any.


Genre and category are often used interchangeably but they're not.

Genre generally means either (1) western, (2) crime, (3)science fiction/fantasy or (4)romance.

Categories are things that can be in any genre: erotica for example. You can have an erotic Western, and/or erotic crime.

YA is a category rather than a genre because you can have YA mysteries, YA SF/F, and YA anything else you want.

Book Club fiction is a category, but it's most often used to describe novels that are women's fiction-- character driven with plots propelled by relationships more than plots propelled by events. More of The Feelings and less of The Fisticuffs.

I think you're better off calling this women's fiction. You always want to use the designation that includes more readers rather than fewer. 

This isn't a graphic novel, but what is it?

QUESTION: I realize that you are not interested in fantasy but I value your prospective from Query Shark so much that I'd like to ask you a question. Your blog has been invaluable to me in drafting an appealing query letter but I'm getting stuck on how to categorize my work. The trouble I'm having is that I've written a graphic novel but instead of it being formatted like a comic book with panels, mine is more like a richly illustrated fairytale in the style of Hans Christian Anderson or Arthur Rackham. I've done the illustrations myself ( I graduated from college for fine art so please don't stop reading) and this format fits the story best, in my opinon at least.

So my question is that in my query can I still call my book a graphic novel? Will an agent or editor think that I'm a nut trying to pass off a really huge picture book or is there a better term I could use to describe it?

Here's a picture so that you can get a better sense of what I mean. I could send the query as well but I understand how indundated you are and I didn't want to take up more of your time.

ANSWER: You don't have a graphic novel. You have a novel in pictures like:


Griffin and Sabine by Nick Bantock (title recalled with the help of my twitter community!-thanks Nichole!)