You’ve written your novel, you’re ready to self-publish it. In the self-publishing platform, you select the genre for your novel.
If you independently publish with Amazon, their platform, CreateSpace asks you to select your category. Your content/subject matter is supposed to determine your genre/category. Whether you write Romance, Mystery, Suspense, etc., there is a genre within the list of categories to fit your novel. Sometimes, this can seem to be a little bit “off.” For instance, my novels are supernatural fiction, but the category for that is “Horror/supernatural.” For those of you who have read my books, Horror doesn’t really fit, I know. 🙂
With all of the best planning in the world, sometimes an author can miss the category that best fits their books. (Can you tell I am sharing one of my failings with you?)
When I wrote “Blessings,” I knew that I didn’t want to write something that the second most voracious reader in the house wouldn’t be allowed to read. Since that’s my thirteen year old daughter, I avoided any racy scenes. Since she’s read “The Hunger Games,” I know I have a fair amount of latitude when it comes to scary stuff.
So, she was one of the Beta Readers.
It didn’t occur to me that I had written a young adult novel.
Until just after my book signing. When, all of a sudden, a small cluster of teenagers bought my books. And then their friends started buying them. And so on and so forth.
Solution: back to the category selection I go. Young adult, here we come.
Genre – be thorough, but be prepared to adapt. Sometimes, the best laid plans might overlook the audience who loves every last word you write.
Happy writing, and blessings to you all…
Meant to comment on this the other day, but things happened. Anyway, what I discovered a while back during the pre-order phase of my memoir was that when it was selling well, it ranked in the subcategories of Mental Illness and also, to my surprise, in Teen/YA biography. But here’s the thing – I didn’t select a Teen/YA category. Amazon just stuck it there! I had, however, used as one of my keywords the phrase “teen runaway” so I suspect that’s how I ended up with the bonus category. So if you’re not sure if you want to change categories, you might also consider altering your keywords and see if Amazon makes the adjustment for you – it might be a way to acquire additional exposure without giving up what you’ve already got. 🙂
Thank you, Lori! I’ll make sure to adjust my keywords in order to shift my category a little. 🙂