It’s Not Selling Out to Write to the Market

Why genre conventions can be freeing, not restrictive

Something publishers are obsessed with is genre or, as it can sometimes feel, putting your book in a box. Classing a book as a certain genre – second-chance romance, or psychological thriller, or literary fiction, or epic fantasy – means we can neatly file your book alongside other similar books, work out what readers we’re targeting, and come up with a title, cover and jacket copy that match.

And that can feel restrictive.

Maybe you don’t feel like you’re writing something that is the same as anything else out there, or you don’t want your book to be pigeonholed in with other books. Maybe you don’t feel like ‘romance’ adequately describes the layers and depth to your book (or you want to avoid the snobbery some people show towards romance… which is a whole other post for another time) and don’t want it to be simply classed like that.

But genre is so important. I confess that I work in commercial fiction, which is an area of the market where books fitting in a clearly defined genre is particularly important – those romances, psych thrillers and sagas are my bread and butter – but for any book being aware of genres and the conventions of each is vital.

Here’s why…