Our thanks to Julia Coblentz of Nook Press for these fabulous insights into that age-old question of how to market your book when it doesn’t fit into a single genre! Photo courtesy freedigitalphotos.net
Stories don’t always fall neatly under one genre’s umbrella. Romances can include suspense, mysteries can include love interests. Fantasies can include love interests and sleuthing… So, what’s an author who likes to write across genres to do?
In a recent blog post, author Chet Williamson described how self-publishing his novel as an eBook allowed him to reach new audiences by cross-categorizing his book, Second Chance. Let’s look at a few tips from the Nook Press blog to ramp up your own multi-genre book marketing.
What can you do to reach fans in multiple genres?
1. Choose categories that make the cross-genre appeal clear: Romance and Mystery? If you believe your book is a true mix of genres, don’t be afraid to choose both! In NOOK Press you can select (up to) five categories. If your romance features a suspenseful story line, check off the mystery category, too.
An important tip on category selection: When choosing categories, select from within Nonfiction or Fiction, but do not cross over between the two. If you do, you may find yourself with too much genre-crossing. Your family relationships-driven romance novel probably isn’t going to find many readers on the self-help page!
2. Make your sub-title “hard working”: After the title some authors include a description of their genre-crossing story in parentheses. Check out Michael Sullivan’s Hollow World (a time-travel sci-fi thriller). The parenthetical description makes it easy for readers to grasp all the themes and genres that this book covers.
3. Develop your own subgenre: If you write across genres consistently, consider creating a branded way of describing your genre-crossing. We like CJ Lyons “Thrillers with Heart” to describe her subgenre of thrillers. See CJ describe how she came up with this description in a video interview with JF Penn.
Does your book cross genres? Have you found a unique way to brand across genres? Tell us about your multi-genre book marketing with your comment below! To learn more about Nook Press, visit www.NookPress.com