L.J. Martin's Blog: Novelists...A Pair, L. J. & Kat Martin, page 4

Genre?

More on writing...
WHAT IS GENRE?

GENRE: Genre is defined by my Random House Dictionary as:

A class or category of artistic endeavor having a particular form, content, technique, or the like.

Romance, science fiction, horror, fantasy, thrillers, historicals, mystery, and westerns are generally considered to be genre novels—and there’re more. And there are sub-genres: adult westerns, fantasy, gothic romance, regency romance, etc., etc.
Who determines genre? The market and a lot of preconceived notions. Editors who buy novels and guide them to finished form, and readers who buy them to consume. Readers expect such a novel, a western for instance, to be written a certain way and, because of those reader expectations, if it isn't written that way, editors generally won't buy it—because they believe it won't sell and their sales department, cast from the same mold, believes they don't know how to sell it. They'll say, "It falls through the slots."
If you want to sell your work to the established publishing houses, the first thing you have to realize is publishing is a business. Like other businesses, publishers want products that sell.
The editor's first obligation to the publishing house is to stock the shelves with the standard product, the proven sellers. Only once in every hundred books they edit will they reach out. And remember, they've probably read or partially read five thousand manuscripts to get those hundred they bought—the reality is that a million manuscripts a year get submitted and 3,500 published in mass-market fiction, numbers that are constantly changing. The odds against a truly unusual book getting to the market are huge. But when they do, they are sometimes the huge sellers. Take Shades of Grey as an example.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull, among the all time best-selling novels, and the most translated novel, bar none, from the English language (at least when I wrote this, I’m sure this has changed), was turned down twenty-eight times before it found a home. It was a short, unusual story. Now it's a short, unusual story translated into more languages than any other novel ever published.
But if you want to get comfortably published, don't try to reinvent the wheel. Write to the market. Make it easy on the editors. Give them a product they're used to, one they can get on the shelf with little effort on their part or that of the copy editor. One that sells and makes money for the publishing house. Or, if you prefer, reinvent the wheel. Tom Clancy did.

Captains Bride NowAvailable on Kindle Order Today!The po...

Captains Bride NowAvailable on Kindle Order Today!

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Captains Bride NowAvailable on Kindle Order Today!The pos...

Captains Bride NowAvailable on Kindle Order Today!

The post appeared first on Western Novels & Books.

Hi Everyone! Just found out that RT Book Reviews Magazine...

Hi Everyone! Just found out that RT Book Reviews Magazine has nominatedAGAINST THE SUNfor Romantic Suspense of the Year! ABIG thank you to all of you for your continued support! If you haven’t read it I hope you’ll look for it.All the best, Kat

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The Christmas Clock

Don’t miss Kat Martin’sstockingstuffer The Christmas Clockavailablein all venues. Click Here

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At $.99 Mr. Pettigrew is a smoking deal for Kindle Reader...

At $.99 Mr. Pettigrew is a smoking deal for Kindle Readers. Download your copy today atAmazon

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Why Can't You Lay It Down?

Now that I've been writing for over 25 years and have 33 or so novels, plus been a critic for my wife's 55 novels, I've come to some conclusions about the novelist's favorite compliment, "I couldn't put it down." And I've studied lots of wonderful novels to try and figure out why a reader "couldn't put it down."

Haven't you often wondered why one novel was so compelling it kept you up nights?

Here's a chapter ending: I was so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open. Trying to read the novel I've been working on for several weeks, I just couldn't get to a logical stopping point, so I dogearred a page and reached up and switched off the light. Tomorrow is another day.

And here's another: I was so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open. Trying to read the novel I've been working on for several weeks, I just couldn't get to a logical stopping point, so I dogearred a page and reached up and switched off the light. Tomorrow is another day. Just as I was about to doze off, I heard the scraping of a window being shoved open. What the hell?

Now, which chapter ending is going to cause you to continue reading and not reach up and turn the light off.

If this is interesting to you, these writer's tricks that make a writer's work compelling, I'll continue with this. Advise, please?

Killing Cancer

Killing Cancer Free for Kindle readers 11/23/12 -11/27/12 Check it out Here

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Hot Rain

Kat’s Hot Rain is priced at $.99 for you Kindle owners. Check it out Here

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Check Out Mr. Pettigrew

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