Picking the right genre—easier said than done? 🪄

Answering your questions about choosing an appropriate genre for your book

For some authors, the genre of their book is crystal clear. But increasingly, genres are blurring and blending (hello, romantasy!), and boundaries between genres are becoming less distinct.

For any author who’s unsure where their book would sit at a bookstore, querying can quickly become a nightmare. What do you label the book as? Which agents do you query? And what the heck is the distinction between “upmarket” and “book club” fiction? Add in the task of crafting a compelling query letter and killer sample pages, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.

Picking the right genre is important, because it determines which agents you’ll send queries to and sets the proper expectations for what your narrative will be like. So today, I’m diving into the intricacies of positioning your novel in the right genre.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

• How do you pick your primary genre?

• What’s the difference between commercial, literary, and upmarket fiction?

• Are certain genres better for traditional vs. self publishing?

• How do you approach genre when your book straddles categories?

• What if your genre isn’t trending? Or is oversaturated?

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How do you pick your primary genre?

While I don't necessarily think you need to know your genre as you're drafting your book, once you are preparing to publish it, genre becomes something you definitely should think about. If you’re querying, you’ll quickly learn that literary agents only accept queries in certain genres they work within. So you need to know your genre to determine if you might be a match, and agents will want the genre clearly stated in your query letter.

If you get the genre wrong and accidentally query an agent who isn’t looking for books in your genre, you’ll likely get quickly rejected. Or, if you present your book as a genre the agent does rep and they get excited, only for them to read the pages and realize it’s another genre entirely, you’ll likely also get rejected.

For instance, I recently saw an agent talk about a situation where an author labeled their book as "romance" when it was actually a sci-fi romance, which would primarily appeal to sci-fi readers rather than general romance readers. In this case, an agent specializing in sci-fi would be more appropriate. The expectations for a sci-fi novel that incorporates a romance plot line are quite different from those of a novel primarily labeled as "romance."

So how do you figure out what your primary genre classification is that you should use to describe your story when you are querying literary agents?

Here’s the framework I use to pinpoint the correct genre—no matter how layered and complex the narrative: