Cross-over to Commercial Fiction

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JJPie

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Some would argue that commercial fiction includes all genres. In the querying wars, some agents specifically say commercial fiction, but not sci-fi/fantasy, while others just make no mention of genres.

I was curious what people here thought in terms of writing sci-fi or fantasy and approaching agents with your story as "commercial fiction." Is there a certain level of science or fantasy that makes it outside this scope v. just having limited science or fantasy elements to keep it in the scope?

I would love to hear everyone's thoughts and advice. I am currently in the bind of my urban fantasy maybe not having enough fantasy and am considering going commercial.

Thanks!
 
Cathy C

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To me, when an agent requests "commercial fiction" or "mainstream fiction" it includes those books that are on the "General Fiction" shelf in a major chain store (big enough that it WOULD have genre shelves to place things on if the book qualified) in the Alphabetical by author name section. :)
 

JJPie

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I guess I get confused when they say commercial and then tack on e.g., thriller/mysteries, romances, etc. Or whatever it is they add on. And you know how everything hits general fiction when it makes best-seller...
Still, I figure if Dresden Files counts as urban, I would go with that.
 
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I came to say what Cathy said.

In my experience, if they say they want "commercial" fiction, and you add one little Italian-speaking, time-traveling caterpillar to the story they get all uppity and rejecty on you.

That said, it seems once an author reaches a certain amount of popularity, the rules shift somewhat. Dean Koontz, Alice Hoffman, Michael Crichton, Stephen King all should be labled genre, but I have seen all of them labeled as "General Fiction" in some places. Especially the late Mr. Jurassic Park.

Mayhaps if you have a plausible science-based story, framed in a modern setting you may have some luck convincing a "Commercial-only" agent or publisher to look at your stuff. But add magic realism or aliens or a talking butterfly, and I suspect you'll have a hard time.
 

JJPie

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XThe NavigatorX said:
I came to say what Cathy said.

In my experience, if they say they want "commercial" fiction, and you add one little Italian-speaking, time-traveling caterpillar to the story they get all uppity and rejecty on you.

That said, it seems once an author reaches a certain amount of popularity, the rules shift somewhat. Dean Koontz, Alice Hoffman, Michael Crichton, Stephen King all should be labled genre, but I have seen all of them labeled as "General Fiction" in some places. Especially the late Mr. Jurassic Park.

Mayhaps if you have a plausible science-based story, framed in a modern setting you may have some luck convincing a "Commercial-only" agent or publisher to look at your stuff. But add magic realism or aliens or a talking butterfly, and I suspect you'll have a hard time.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the insight! I particularly liked the time-traveling caterpillar and talking butterfly.

You guys are all right, of course. As such, I've only been querying genre. Though found a few gems that actually will take anything though they don't spell it for you until you dig deeper. Still, I wanted to widen my search if at all possible.
 
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