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GENRES and SUB-SUB-SUB-GENRES
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I think that there is a misconception regarding genre…
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Let try metaphor here (my MFA in Scene Design was basically a degree in metaphor. Every. Single. Design. Started. With. A. Metaphor. lol)
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Genre is like a focused store, selling one main product… each store and its product represents a genre in fiction. Kitchen supply store, florist, hardware store, dress shop, menswear… each is a Genre.
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Let’s liken Mystery to a shoe store. At that macro level, most of your customers have just a couple of things in common. They have feet, and we hope, have the ability to pay for the footwear they want.
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But what you are looking for, is not GENRE, but sub-sub-sub–etc-genre.
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A parent looking for shoes for her toddler (Cozy Mystery – a sub-genre with other sub-sub-sub-genres — dress-up shoes for a second birthday, sandals for a vacation at the beach, sneakers for running around — as you drill down) is unlikely to also purchase work boots — steel-toed, over the ankle, black workboots (terrorism, slavery and the sex trade, gun running, drug addiction and drug trafficking, etc mystery) that an IATSE stagehand is there to purchase.
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If you market the work boots to the parent, sales will likely be few and far between…
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Here’s the deal, there *might* be overlap between them – we had Moms in my IATSE local 😉 — but they aren’t a large enough segment of the population to support work boots sales on their own…
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Selling work boots to IATSE stagehands, non-union stage hands, roadies etc, starts to get you traction. However, hanging pink Second Birthday balloons over the work boot display likely is a waste of resources.
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So, drill down and identify the market that way 😉 Then, look at the packaging that makes sense for those readers/work boot buyers
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This is why when I talk genre, i consider the top levels — Mystery, Sci-Fi, Romance, Erotica, etc — to be so large that they ARE meaningless…
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This is a common mistake and is one I spend a lot of time clarifying. Metaphor is a useful tool to explain concepts like these 😉