What's my category?

[LloydBrown]

After years of using the print version of WM, I just signed up for Writersmarket.com yesterday.

So, I set out to run a search of markets for a book...then find several categories that look like they might apply to what I've written.

The topic is how to operate a particular business within the specialty retail field.

Is that business? How-to? Money/finance? Where does it fit?

Or is there a better folder for this question?

[Lauri B]

After years of using the print version of WM, I just signed up for Writersmarket.com yesterday.

So, I set out to run a search of markets for a book...then find several categories that look like they might apply to what I've written.

The topic is how to operate a particular business within the specialty retail field.

Is that business? How-to? Money/finance? Where does it fit?

Or is there a better folder for this question?

Hi Lloyd,
Actually, this is a great question, and one that any nf author should be able to answer before pitching a book. From your short description, I'd say it should go in business rather than how-to. Most how-to books are for a general audience, and your book sounds like it has very specific parameters. Good luck!

[aruna]

I am currently submitting my fourth novel to UK markets; I have 3 novels published by Harpercollins and for diverse reasons am changing publisher and agent. My editor told me, for example, that my setting of Guyana (British Guiana) was "not commercial" and my agent agreed; they both wanted me to continue writing novels set in India.
This fourth novel is set in Guyana and I have had two positive reactions from agents which I hope will go further. However, if the current round of submissions fails to land an agent, I'm thinking of submitting to the US. I'd love an opinion, Nomad!
One of the interested agents very kindly sent me his reader's report on the partial ms and this is what it said (among other things):

The author mentions in her email that her previous editor believed a book set in India rather than BG would have more commercial appeal. That might be true in the UK, but I don´t think that would be the case in the States. I have always been attracted to fiction set in countries other than my own though, so perhaps my own enthusiasm is leading me to believe that there would be more of a market than there actually is.

My first novel was rejected by US publishers on the grounds that "India is not commercial in America, especially the Mid-west", and soon after that the whole India craze set in - but by then it was too late. I looked for a US publisher on my own, got a Simon and Schuster editor requesting my ms, and then my agent told me that "She's probably very junior and I have a sub-agent working on it", which in retrospect I find really mysterious.

Could you (and others) comment on this, please? Do you think I should widen my net to the US?

(oops - sorry. I meant to start my own thread.. I didn't mean to barge into this one. Perhaps a mod can do it for me?)

[Lauri B]

I am currently submitting my fourth novel to UK markets; I have 3 novels published by Harpercollins and for diverse reasons am changing publisher and agent. My editor told me, for example, that my setting of Guyana (British Guiana) was "not commercial" and my agent agreed; they both wanted me to continue writing novels set in India.
This fourth novel is set in Guyana and I have had two positive reactions from agents which I hope will go further. However, if the current round of submissions fails to land an agent, I'm thinking of submitting to the US. I'd love an opinion, Nomad!
One of the interested agents very kindly sent me his reader's report on the partial ms and this is what it said (among other things):



My first novel was rejected by US publishers on the grounds that "India is not commercial in America, especially the Mid-west", and soon after that the whole India craze set in - but by then it was too late. I looked for a US publisher on my own, got a Simon and Schuster editor requesting my ms, and then my agent told me that "She's probably very junior and I have a sub-agent working on it", which in retrospect I find really mysterious.

Could you (and others) comment on this, please? Do you think I should widen my net to the US?

(oops - sorry. I meant to start my own thread.. I didn't mean to barge into this one. Perhaps a mod can do it for me?)

Hi Aruna,
I wish I could answer this for you with any kind of authority, but I can't. Nomad publishes nonfiction, and so I have no experience with what fiction publishers are looking for these days, on any continent. I LOVE novels set outside the US, but that's not especially helpful, I know. In general, I think the literary publishers aren't adverse to taking on projects that are out of the US--look at what's running up the BookSense charts these days.
I don't think the location of your novel should preclude any publisher evaluating it--for most of us Americans, British Guyana might as well be India, for all we know of geography (oh, I know I'm going to get slammed for that). Good luck!

[LloydBrown]

Hi Lloyd,
Actually, this is a great question, and one that any nf author should be able to answer before pitching a book. From your short description, I'd say it should go in business rather than how-to. Most how-to books are for a general audience, and your book sounds like it has very specific parameters. Good luck!

Thanks, Nomad. That was my general impression, but without knowing the textbook definitions, I wasn't sure. I'll be spending time on their encyclopedia, too, over the next few days. Maybe that will help with future questions about where a ms belongs.

[aruna]

Thanks. Nomad. I'll see what this batch of agents does and take it from there.