I have a book I want to send out to agents, but I'm not even sure how to market it. It's a ghost story, but I wouldn't really call it horror, but definitely supernatural. Should I try to sell it as 'fiction' or 'horror' or something else entirely?
Query genre question
- Thread starter Katophract
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Hi Katophract. It's difficult to give an answer without knowing more about the book, but 'fiction' is not a genre - it is a given that a novel is always fiction.
My gut would say supernatural, but that's not taking into account any other themes in the story. Could you elaborate?
My gut would say supernatural, but that's not taking into account any other themes in the story. Could you elaborate?
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Figure out 3 or 4 books on the market that you think would fall into the same genre as your book, and look at how they are categorized.
~suki
If it's a hybrid of two genres you call it paranormal (i.e. paranormal romance, paranormal fantasy)
But if it's just a ghost story I think it would be just paranormal fiction.
But if it's just a ghost story I think it would be just paranormal fiction.
Ah, of course, I was thinking of book isles and how some paranormal stuff is in the sci-fi fantasy area and others are in the "fiction" isle. But I suppose I need to narrow the question down to what genre the agents are looking for. Thanks for the responses!
This is usually due to how the book is marketed. If the supernatural element is heavy and would appeal to the sci fi/fantasy crowd, you might wind up in SFF. If it's more a story that happens to have a supernatural element to it, you might wind up in general fiction. Sometimes it's where the editor think they can sell it best.