Which Genre should I go with?

[M. Ray Holloway Jr.]

I have a new novel coming out in the next few days, and I'm no sure which genre to go with.
There is a time machine in it, and the main character goes back in time, so that makes me think Science Fiction.
It follow two young lovers from age thirteen through age forty three, and involves a lot of teen activities, so that calls to mind Young Adult.
Finally, it has Christian themes throughout, but is not the primary focus of the book, so I wondered about Christian Fiction.

I know I can list under more than one, but I'm wanting to focus on the main draw in my promotions. What say you, people?

[G.G.]

Maybe because I'm a science fiction fan, but with time travel, I'd certainly go mainly with science fiction, then if I had other choices I'd with YA. YA is a very popular genre so you'd have good chances with it.

Sadly, Christian themes might limit your audience.

[Dwayne, Head of Lettuce]

M. Ray Holloway Jr. wrote: "What say you, people? "

I studied a bit about Christian literature and read several Christian books not that long ago. I would say if the themes are not the prominent message in the story and if you do not want to specifically reach out to Christian readers, do not market it as Christian.

I'd go with Young Adult / Science Fiction, as G.G. suggested.

[Owen]

Not having seen your book, it's hard to say but I tend to agree with Dwayne and GG. My feeling about the Christian themes is the same: I have a fairly strong impression that Christian Fiction means something both specific and narrow, and will convey an impression that will not be helpful.

Regarding YA, that depends. I don't know much about YA, but I think it's a matter of focus, not the age of the characters or what they are doing. I wouldn't call it YA unless the themes are predominantly those that appeal to a YA audience, which has nothing to do with the characters' age. If you haven't tested the book with YA readers, I'd suggest doing that before calling it YA. Again, that classification implies certain things to readers and could lead to people either passing the book by or getting it and being disappointed.

A cautionary tale: When we released our first book, we had a high number of returns. We weren't that surprised, as we expected our book to be unpopular. But then we ran a GR giveaway and the people who signed up were heavily YA readers (according to their interests). At that point, a light went on. Our MC is is 11 at the beginning of the book, so people were assuming it was a YA book, and weren't bothering to read the sample.

Our book is most emphatically not YA. It was not classified as such nor did it have any YA-related keywords. It never occurred to us that readers (especially certain classes of readers) rarely bother with the sample, just as we never thought people would assume a book was YA based on the MC's age. We promptly attached a strong warning to the blurb and returns dropped to essentially zero.

So lesson learned.

You can changed classifications and keywords at will, so it might be good to go with just sci-fi and give it awhile to see who the audience is and what their interests are, and fine-tune as you go. You can try different things for 3-4 months and then try something else to gauge the response until you get a combination that seems to fit best.

[W.]

CS Lewis, when asked if the world needed more Christian Writers, responded that he thought that was not needed but that more writers who were Christian was.
He is famously quoted as saying that fantasy and in particular mythology allowed him to "slip under the noses of dragons" the truth of the faith. He certainly succeeded in LWW.
Therefore: YA plus minus (depends more on the arc of the story). And Science Fiction

[Ellison]

Along with what others have said, if you target a young adult audience you may lose some of your potential adult audience. If there are adult themes you may also have to add a warning.

I'd go with Sci-Fi primarily (maybe not even making keywords age-specific) since young adults who read sci-fi may not search specifically under 'young adult' category anyway.

[M. Ray Holloway Jr.]

Thank you all for your comments. My initial gut feeling was to list this as Sci-fi, and that seems to be the consensus here, so I am going to go with that. As I read through it during my edits, I realized that there were things that might appeal to young adults and/or Christian readers, so that was why I asked.

I recently polled a Christian board that I participate in, and they indicated that Christian themes do not have to be overt, as I had thought. According to them, if the values of the characters are Christian, and they behave in a moral fashion consistently, the book could be listed as Christian fiction. Honestly, I'm not sure that I agree with that though, as I look through that genre and see pretty strong emphasis on the Biblical values in most everything I've looked at there.

Libby, your "coming of age" point is well taken, and I think that is why I was considering YA. These characters fall in love at a very young age and their relationship definitely develops as the story progresses. The way they express their love as early teens is far different from the way they behave after they have been together for thirty years. I tried to make it endearing to watch the MCs grow up and learn to deal with the problems that arise over a long term relationship.

[M. Ray Holloway Jr.]

Anyway, I got the answers I needed, so I'm going to close this thread. Thanks for everyone's input.