16 Comments

So helpful, thank you! I am writing a memoir about finding sovereignty through the healing power of music and nature after a lifetime of yoga practices…

Finding descriptors for it has involved quite a bit of head-banging: is it about leaving a Tantra cult? About a gynocentric worldview turned toxic? A love story in the historic wilds of Ireland? An international escape from a virus, or the bliss of finding creative kinship?

As you suggest, best to focus on the story and leave the rest to professionals.

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This was insightful!

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Very helpful. For my first book, which is a memoir, editors and potential publishers all wanted the book to be about either the first half of my story (dance) OR the second half (costume design). I wanted it to be about my entire life that encompassed both careers and were affected by each other.

Working on an early draft of my follow-up book I am finding there are debates about category, so your comments are very helpful. Tell the story.

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So helpful, and so clear, Brooke. I love your substack posts. In this one it's really good to hear that ultimately it's the story that matters to editors.. Thank you

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Definitely true that authors worry too much about book categories when they ate selling their book to agents and editors, but I'm very glad you addressed genre because an author knowing their genre well was super important to me when I was in acquisitions.

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YES! Another public service announcement to aspiring authors. On the editorial side, the story is what matters most, not where it fits in the marketing scheme of things. Story first. It is in revisions that I see how writers work through the "aboutness" of their story; and in discovering what their book is about for readers also figure out where it fits in terms of genre and category and then how to market it.

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Yes, in edits, figure out the marketing.

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I just listened to your podcast about the "new rules" or "less rules" in memoir. Super helpful and interesting as I navigate hybrid work. This is helpful as well.

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I hear you and to want to believe you but it’s hard. As a former bookstore owner I feel the authors anguish about where the book will be shelved. Sometimes I just stood in the middle of the bookstore and scratched my head…then created a new category for the book. Now, as an author (I’ve written 3 books on Ayurveda) my agent tells me some of my ideas won’t work because where will they be shelved? My new memoir involves an eating disorder, and offers meditation practices and recipes! I can only imagine where it will find a home in the bookstore!

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Thank you for this Brooke!

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Nice, simple explanation for newer writers.

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Yes

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Brooke, so cogent and helpful, as always. Thank you for sharing your industry expertise and educating all of us about these distinctions between genre, category, and keywords.

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Very helpful for this debut author. It's mind-blowing learning all that is involved after you've written your book. I am happy to know that mine is in good hands.

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Such a clear and useful piece -- and you're a marvelous ambassador helping writers navigate between these two publishing domains.

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Thank you for your thoughts. I must confess that as an "unknown" author, I've run up against the BISAC wall and have occasionally been unable to find the "right" category. Moreover, I have found it very difficult to market my series, because it crossed so many genre lines.

Yes, the "story" is what was important, and I have immensely enjoyed letting the four-novel series ran its course. However, sales have been a joke, in part because I cannot find the right ways to market. [Just to explain: It's a romance, with classical music and hard-core S/M (not the bland material of *50 Shades*); it has the Holocaust, the Mafia, the psychic/occult, a personified Curse (capital "C" -- and it's 2,000 years old!), and an esoteric notion of reincarnation called "soul fractions." Hats off to ANYONE who can "classify" it!]

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