THE Group for Authors! discussion

Hi all,

I'm trying to nail down my book's genre. It's about a teenager who is kidnapped off the streets and trained as an assassin. Throughout the book, she kills most of the people on a hit list she's received. However, by the end of the book, she's met a mentor who's willing to show her a different way and eventually wants to take down the crime organization she worked for.

Readers have reported that it feels dystopian in nature, however, it doesn't exist in a dystopian world. It takes place in the here and now, present day America.

I've been thinking crime, but I'm not sure that's the best description. Because yes crime exists in the book, and yes the main character is a criminal, and the book is told from her perspective, but most of the book is dedicated to her attempts to get out of her life of crime.

Help?

Your book sounds a lot like Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz. You might check out the tags people have given that book.

Find well-known published books like yours using Amazon and Amazon apps such as Soovle. From your description above it sounds like the tags "coming of age" would be valuable, like Emma Kline's book Girls. But if your book would be read by a younger audience, even though dark, I would consider Young Adult (YA) -- if there is sex maybe New Adult which is a genre used by literary agencies. When you look at Amazon you allowed to pick two categories so see what is listed in the product description of comparable titles to yours.

The traditional rigid boundaries that once separated and segregated a novel's genre assignment have become much more flexible during the past decade, since subject matter has often become more complex. Genre assignment is now left up to the publisher or author of a self-published work.

A cursory review of some novels reveals a tendency to assign multiple genre and sub-genre descriptions. For example, a book, randomly selected from my shelf, is described as follows: Fiction / Science Fiction / General Fiction / Alternative History.

Based upon your description, I suggest Crime / General Fiction.

Not to act like a "NY Times Bestselling Author," but from a sales perspective, it is important to have a story that fits into a genre. Without that 'fit' you'll have readers buying it, expecting one type of story, then giving you bad reviews because they find it to be another type of story. Regardless, good luck.

I agree with Ray. Think about walking into a bookstore and looking at the shelf titles. Where would you put your book in the bookstore? Would you put it with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Crime Fiction. Or looking at Hunger Games as an example:
#1 in Books > Teens > Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure > Survival Stories. Or All the Missing Girls? Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Coming of Age

http://writersinthestormblog.com/2015...

Book Genres Explained/ Writers in the Storm Blog is excellent.

I didn't catch your name: Your book kind of sounds like it could fall into the Fiction/ action, mystery /thriller , or suspense /thriller. Are you familiar with The Executioner series from Don Pendleton? Mack Bolan was his character, who sounds somewhat similar to your character. Those books always fell under what's mentioned above. I know Fiction is still there, but I don't know about the subs, I would guess they are, and you could fit into any of them. Thank You Robert

Thanks everyone! I really appreciate the help.

My first thought on reading that blurb was "suspense/thriller." Possibly also YA.

Thank you everyone! This has been really helpful!