Even years after the debut of the e-book, people continue to bemoan the decline of the NY-published hardback and brick-and-mortar bookstores like Barnes & Noble, but plenty of us have come to embrace the many benefits that going digital offers us as readers.*
For example, I shop online for books at more affordable prices at my convenience; I carry a virtual library everywhere I go so I am never without something to read, and I read books from that portable collection both outdoors under the bright sun at the beach and indoors in the dark, while tucked in bed next to my sleeping partner—all thanks to my handy, dandy illuminated Paperwhite.
I especially like the way that the sub-genre lines in romance have been blurring and expanding with the addition of new categories since the arrival of the digital book. Shopping for the exact book I want to read via these new classifications results in my locating the ideal story in just a few minutes. With the one-click purchase option and immediate download, I don’t even have to dig through my purse for my credit card. As a busy individual, with limited leisure time, I appreciate anything that expedites the moment I can settle down to actually read.
The online booksellers’ trend of dividing genres into increasingly specific sub-categories both aids shoppers in their search for the perfect story to read and helps authors and publishers reach their ideal audience. Want to read a paranormal romance story with witches but without the ubiquitous vampire, a story which could also be categorized under historical romance? Want to find a gothic romance, heavy on military action, set during the 1920s? How about a western spy thriller romance threaded with dark tones of BDSM? Type in the key descriptive words and peruse the instant results.
Readers once had to visit multiple stores and hunt through shelves of books that didn’t appeal to them on the quest for the perfect read (a quest that often ended unhappily with a book that didn’t quite fit their needs). Now readers can simply type key words into the search box of the online bookseller to surf one of hundreds of categories to pull up dozens, if not hundreds, of books that closely match their immediate reading fix.
With the fluidity of web design, online booksellers can create new categories and add new search terms for customers with ease. The cool thing about this trend is that it also affects what writers can afford to write and publish, further magnifying the possibilities of genre categories.
In the day of print-only books, working writers were forced to produce stories that fit neatly into generally defined genres. The cost of printing books—even cheap mass market paperbacks—forced publishers to restrict the content published in order to attract enough buyers to sell enough copies to turn a profit. Consequently, niche or unusual stories were often passed over by publishers for stories with broader appeal, resulting in a limited number of genres and sub-genres available on the book store shelves.
Because e-books cost little to “print” and distribute (though the cost to write, edit and advertise remains the same), publishers, and indie-writers especially, can make money going after smaller, more highly specialized audiences. If a writer creates a story that appeals to only a few hundred or a few thousand readers a year (vs. twenty thousand), she can still potentially earn enough money from that effort to make it worth her time spent writing, revising and editing the work. Because the book is digital, and therefore won’t go out of print, the book can make its profit over a longer stretch of time than a print edition ever could.
By blurring the lines between genres and sub-dividing genres into increasingly specific categories, online booksellers like Amazon make fast and easy the shopping and selection of a specific buyer’s ideal read.
Naturally, there is one important caveat regarding the blurring and expanding of traditional category lines. The publisher and the indie-author must use special care in selecting the categories and search terms they associate with books they load onto the booksellers’ virtual shelves.
Categorizing a book into any of the multiple romance sub-categories, no matter how specific or general the category—when one’s book doesn’t actually feature the development of two (or more) characters’ relationship into an HEA or HFN ending—is bound to result in unhappy readers and returned books. It’s out and out chicanery to try to capitalize on romance’s popularity by calling a book a romance that isn’t a romance for the purpose of luring in unsuspecting readers.
The creation of new romance sub-genres shouldn’t negate the underlying definition of romance. That general category term is not actually up for redefinition. Genre categories are created to help readers find books that suit their reading preferences, not to help writers or publishers misrepresent the nature of their work. If a writer wants to sell me a romance, regardless of whatever other attributes manifest in the story, she or he must be sure to write one first. Frankly, writers who don’t read romances probably shouldn’t be “trying” to write romances either. This is one case in which the old adage “write what you know” generally holds up.
Ultimately, the ability to use highly specific search terms and review new, unique category lists should facilitate readers’ shopping experiences by helping them find the perfect book to read.
*Because I went through mourning more than a decade ago when the big corporate bookstore universally ran the little independent bookstore out-of-business, I don’t mourn the corporate bookstores’ comeuppance. Well-aware of how poorly paid most authors have been by “prestigious” NY publishers, I don’t feel all that weepy over their struggle to adapt to changing times either. I’m not wishing failure on any business per se; it’s just that I like to think karma exists on some level, and being fair has its rewards, while being unfair has its consequences.
Image by Artist: Kenneth Josephson, Title: Chicago (blurred book pages) www.stephendaitergallery.com