Tag Archive for: cross genre

Mystery! Suspense! Thriller!

When I pitched my first book to a publisher, I described it as a mystery. “Tell me about it,” said the acquisitions editor. After hearing the the storyline, she asked to see the full manuscript and gave me her card.

 Glancing at the card, I noticed that the publisher she represented specialized in romance novels. I repeated that the book I had written was a mystery.

“Sounds like romance is a substantial part of it,” she countered. “Send the manuscript and let us decide.”

Long story short, her company published The Body Business as a Romantic Suspense novel. Thus began my initiation into the wacky world of genre madness and the marketing issues that plagued the book for the duration of the publishing contract.

Fast forward to the day the contract ended. At last, I had more control over how, when, and where the book was advertised.

Thankfully, the new edition took off and led to the launch of the Samantha Newman Mystery Series. As published authors know, trying to slide your novel into the perfect preset niche that book retailers and other marketers require can be daunting. My books tend to cross genres, so picking a single category was like aiming a fistful of darts at one teeny tiny target and hoping the right dart would hit the bullseye.

Mystery? Thriller? Suspense? Which one suits the stories best?

Here’s a simple way to differentiate them according to best-selling, multi-award winning author Hank Phillippi Ryan: “I always think a mystery is ‘who-done-it?’ A thriller is ‘stop it before it happens again.’ And suspense is ‘what’s going on here?’

These simple guidelines help me define the books in my series, even though each one fits into a different category.

Reviewers describe The Body Business as a “roller-coaster ride” and a “page-turner.” In other words, it reads like a thriller. As for The Body Next Door, some reviewers have called it a cozy. Like a cozy, there’s humor and a quirky character or two, but the absence of cats, crafts, or a charming village could risk the wrath of traditional cozy fans. It’s also been described as “full of suspense,” which is how I wrote it, straight-up.

Romance runs through the series as a subplot, due to my fiercely independent-minded main character, who continues to deflect the happy-ever-after ending romance readers crave. The romance continues into the next book, but the main plot is a true who-done-it.

To label a book as a mystery, suspense novel, or thriller is purely a marketing game. What an author really cares about is that people enjoy reading it. When our readers share a book they really like with their friends, they can describe it however they want.

Readers, do you rely on a bookseller’s categories to choose a book?

Writers, have you struggled with labels, too? Tell us about it.

Gay Yellen is the award-winning author of the Samantha Newman Mystery Series, including The Body Business, The Body Next Door, and the upcoming Body in the News.

 

Cross Genre

by Bethany Maines
Cross-genre.  You’ll
hear the term a lot in writing circles. 
But what is it?  It’s book that
melds the elements of more than one genre together.  Books are coded by something known as a BISAC
code that allows libraries to appropriately shelve a book and search engines to
find it.  The list is extensive and
usually books can have two BISAC codes. 
(You can check out the list for fiction here: bisg.org/page/Fiction But
be warned—it’s extensive!)
My forthcoming book Shark’s
Hunt
, book #3 of the Shark Santoyo Crime Series, can appropriately be filed
under FIC031010 FICTION / Thrillers / Crime, but it’s possible that it
could be filed under FIC027260 FICTION / Romance / Action & Adventure
or FIC022000 FICTION / Mystery & Detective / General.    Or I could just go for a broad category and
label it: FIC044000 FICTION / Women. 
Am I the only one who finds it odd that women are a category of
fiction?  There isn’t a category for
Men.  Or is all fiction assumed to be
men’s fiction and we need to let people know that this book over here is just
for women? Seems odd, but we’ll just leave that one alone for now.
But beyond the BISAC codes, which while useful, are not the
end all definition of a book, there is marketing and that’s where things get
persnickety.  An author and a marketer
need to be able to tell and sell someone on a book in 30 seconds or less. 
The Shark Santoyo
Crime Series is a witty, romantic saga about a violent suburban underworld.
Shark Santoyo and Peregrine Hays are the Romeo and Juliet of the criminal set
and they are determined to find justice, revenge, and true love. There’s just
an entire mob and a few dirty FBI agents in the way.

So from my “elevator pitch” you should know that there’s
going to be violence, romance, crime, and a touch of humor.  But all of those things are hard to encompass
in a single book description and a cover.  
Which is why you’ll see cross-genre books “pushed” toward one genre.  There’s a girl in the book – make it sexy on
the cover!  Don’t mention the humor –
humor doesn’t sell!  On the other hand,
when a book succeeds you’ll hear people knowingly say, “Well, it’s really
cross-genre.”  Of
course, it’s cross-genre! No book is ever one thing entirely. It’s as though an author just can’t win. 

On the other hand, if you think cross-genre witty, romantic saga about a violent suburban underworld sounds fun, then check out Shark’s Instinct and Shark’s Bite and pre-order Shark’s Hunt today.

***
Bethany Maines
is the author
of the Carrie Mae Mystery Series, San Juan Islands Mysteries, Shark Santoyo Crime Series, and numerous
short stories. When she’s not traveling to exotic lands, or kicking some
serious butt with her fourth degree black belt in karate, she can be found
chasing her daughter or glued to the computer working on her next novel. You
can also catch up with her on
YouTube, Twitter
and Facebook
.