If you write in a straightforward genre, this post isn't for you. I understand that sub-genres and I suppose sub-sub genres exist, but the primary classification of your book is crystal clear. Nobody understands women's fiction. I'm not even sure that all writers of it fully understand it. And it certainly doesn't help that many book marketing sites don't get it, either. Countless times I've had to choose "literary fiction" for my book's genre, because that was the only option open to me, and my books could not be further away from literary.
The very last thing a women's fiction author wants to do is label her book "romance", because romance readers are rabid dogs who will hunt you down and rip your face off if you desecrate their vaunted genre. Don't get me wrong ~ I've never done it. Just the dire warning alone kept me huddling in a corner, my body trembling and convulsing at the deadly consequences that would befall me.
However, romance writers have no compunction about labeling their kissy books as women's fiction (as a sub-genre, of course). When you're the one in charge, you get to do any damn thing you please. Because, you see, it's not enough to hog the book market, you need to lash other writers into submission.
I've said it before, but it's true ~ some of the best books I ever read had no label attached. They were either fiction or non-fiction. That's it.
So, what do I do when I'm ready to publish a book? Luckily, KDP does have a women's fiction subcategory. It's tricky to find, but it's there. My problem comes in with marketing. I can choose fiction or the dreaded literary fiction, and that's about it.
But what if my story contains elements of suspense or mystery? Well, they're not technically either of those things, and if I chose them I would need to watch my back for the pack of wild dogs again. Thus, I'm stuck.
Some sites, like LibraryThing, allow an author to choose three or more categories. What does one do? Inn Dreams, for example, is definitely women's fiction, but it does contain a mystery and it involves psychological suspense. Do I just leave it at women's fiction? With KDP I can plop those terms in as keywords and at least feel that I've covered all my bases.
Keywords, too, can present problems, though. One of the promo sites I signed up for allowed entry of ten keywords and I used as many as were relevant. Yesterday they informed me that they were nice enough to place my book in multiple categories, including romance, ostensibly because one of my keywords was "love". Not "romance"; "love". Even when I try not to call out the hounds, they get called out on my behalf. One would think a book promotion site would know better.
A big problem with pushing my books is that no one knows what they are.
Next comes the issue of book descriptions. I've gotten much better with writing them, but a book description is, aside from your cover, the book's selling point. If it's not interesting or intriguing, kiss your sales goodbye. Self-published authors have differing opinions regarding book descriptions and most of them are wrong. You just don't go on and on and on, ad nauseum, in your description. It's tiresome. A potential buyer who's scanning books will simply click onto the next one. No one cares about all your characters' unpronounceable names except you. And frankly, don't even mention more than two, at the most three, names in your description. It's dumb. No one has even read the book yet. I generally stick to the MC's name alone. I can maybe add "her boss" or "her fiance", etc., but really, people. Come on.
All that said, your book description has to tempt people to read it. Thus, I naturally highlight the inciting incident, even if the majority of my story centers around other things. I'm not trying to mislead anyone, but what would you have me do? "Mabel Mumphrey goes to work and things happen and then other things happen"? I guess my stories are just hard to describe.
The obvious answer is to just write in a different genre. I have toyed with the idea of writing a romance. I'd have to read a couple first to get the formula down, but since every crappily written romance book sells like hotcakes, I could maybe make some money for a change. Literary fiction is out. I can't do "pretentious", and even reading one single passage of literary fiction makes me want to gouge my eyeballs out.
Right now, given the choice of labeling my book women's fiction or simply going with "fiction" or even "contemporary fiction", I'll go with the fiction category.
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