Things That Are Not Genre 

Hi! I believe writing to a market is less about the voice and more about the content! So if you want to query US agents, it's good to know which genres/tropes are popular in the US market, because that's where the agents will be trying to sell! But it's okay if the voice is an "aussie voice" as you put it :)

@@BookEndsLiterary thank you! This is god to know. I write YA horror so the tropes are pretty universal.

I'm in the same position as you, but a South African, and also wondering if I will get a US literary agents to represent me. My ms is a historical romance fiction story, but is about one family and their drama, so it's also a family drama, lol. Would book ends and other literary agents reject my ms because it's about a South African story, or not? I hope not, because it's really a great story. No, really.😅

Exactly! The only bookstore close to me was 2 hours away, was being the operative word because it closed down during the pandemic. (Not that I could afford to go to it more than once every few years) And the "where it's shelved in your library" makes zero sense, because my local library only separates books as fiction, non-fiction, children's, adults, and YA. I have found comic books shelved with adult books because of them being sorted via author name and age group. 🤷

These are fair critiques, our way of defining genre in this video does lean heavily on the idea of a standard US bookstore or library with large enough stock to categorize books by genre, which is not going to be an accessible comparison for everyone, so we're sorry about that! One way around this would be to run an internet search on how major bookstores in the US are sorted, and most of the resources you find will list the most common genres that books are sorted by. This is really only relevant if you're looking at agents in the US, since they're likely going to think about genre in a way that reflects the US market, which is reflected in mid-to-large sized US bookstores! As for specific agents that list things like "LGBTQ+" as a genre, yeah that can definitely be a little confusing. You might be able to decide based on which element is the most prominent. So, the same way some historical romances have a "home" genre of historical fiction and others have a "home" genre of romance (depending on which elements are more prevalent) you could think of which "home" your book sits in. Is it an LGBTQ+ story that happens to take place in a historical setting (in which case you might select LGBTQ+)? Or is it a historical book that happens to have LGBTQ+ elements (in which case you might select historical)? That might help you decide how to pick! But you're right that LGBTQ+ is not a genre so the lack of consistency makes things complicated. I hope this helps clarify some stuff!

@@BookEndsLiterary Yes, in my case I'm leaning towards historical but I still think the Query Tracker genre lists are often a hellscape :). Fyi, the library my friend checked where my comps were listed in "fiction" is a mid-sized branch with a good-sized stock. Just now I called the main branch in the same city (Oakland, CA) which is *quite* large, and they also have them under fiction. I asked about their genre categories and they have three for fiction: fiction, mystery, and science fiction. So at least for libraries, size of stock does not necessarily determine number of genres. Regardless, thanks for your thoughtful reply and for your videos which I find both helpful and endlessly entertaining.

Hi! I think a lot of historical fantasy is fantasy that's inspired by specific eras in history, so I think that historical fantasy can be a good category for your book! But also, if you feel the fantasy element is stronger than the historical element (is it a fantasy book that just happens to be inspired by WWI, or is it a historical book with fantastical elements?) you could always categorize it as fantasy to catch the broader genre category.

If an agent wants to be informed of a full request, they will say so explicitly in their submission guidelines. This is far more common with UK agents than US agents. There is no need to say the agent/agency. Good luck!

@@elburn7385 thank you :)

Typically you don't have to inform other agents of full requests! You only have to notify them if you receive an offer of representation. And if you do receive an offer of rep, you don't have to tell the other agents who is offering (unless you want to)

Science fiction and fantasy

@@andrewfallman7542 But they are genres tyemselves...

Yeah, it's more used to describe writers, in my experience, who do both. Some bookstores may shelve them together or by each other

Speculative fiction is not really a genre; it's just a catch-all way of describing books that have some kind of element that makes it non-realist. For example, anything including: magic, supernatural/paranormal elements, futuristic elements, or other imagined (think "speculated") elements. Typically, fantasy, science fiction, magical realism/fabulism, and horror are genres that fall under the category of speculative fiction; alternate history can also fall under this category. Hope this helps!

@@BookEndsLiterary Yet Query Tracker has 'speculative' as what looks like a separate category. I write plausible SiFi (no space operas). Should I Query agents who list that they are interested in 'speculative' fiction?

Personally, I would call it middle-grade mystery since it sounds like mystery at the core, the other elements are only enhancing that core of it being a mystery 🙂

Typically this is a subgenre of something else! For example, you could do a climate sci-fi, which might be more about the dystopic elements of the new world caused by climate change; or you could do literary climate fiction, where someone has to come to terms with the new world they're living in; or you could have climate horror, where there are some horrific elements stemming from climate change. You can do climate fiction in all kinds of ways, and that will decide your genre! You might want to search "climate fiction" and see what kinds of titles are included-you'll notice they span all genres, which is a good indicator that climate fiction itself is more of a descriptor than a genre!