By Jennifer S. Wilkov, Host of “Your Book Is Your Hook!” Radio Show
www.yourbookisyourhook.com

As authors and writers, we’re always learning about resources and industry tools that we can use to improve our book project performance and the enjoyment of our writing and marketing experiences. Today let’s talk about the genres of your book.

Oftentimes a book fits into more than one genre and category. In fact, when submitting your book to an agent or publisher, they’ll often ask for what genre you feel your book best fits into and then some alternative options for it as well.

Some genres can cover more than one area or category – such as the narrative non-fiction book, a novel of true events. How funny it is that this category, albeit more challenging to write and write well, is often cloaked in the categories and genres of memoir, true crime, travel or other better known bookshelves at the bookseller.

If you look for the narrative non-fiction shelf though, you won’t find it as it doesn’t exist. But the style and presentation of the book clearly does. Just take the well-known books Seabiscuit or Black Hawk Down as examples.

Other categories that often double for your book may be a gift book or a self-help and relationship book and of course there are many others.

To categorize your book and determine what genres it may fit into, simply take a trip to the bookstore – either online from the comfort of your own home or get out and about and pay a visit to your favorite local bookseller. Walk the aisles and search for the categories that you feel best suit your book project. Then pick up a few books that would be found in the same section and on the same shelf. Turn each one over and check out the other categories listed for them. Perhaps the other genres they’re in just might apply to yours.

A book project is organic – and so is the process to categorize it.

An easy way to express your genre is to make a simple hook for your book – like taking two well-recognized titles and stringing them together. A great example of this is when Sesame Street® meets Rachel Ray’s Book of 10: More Than 300 Recipes to Cook Every Day, you get Hungry Girl 1-2-3: The Easiest, Most Delicious, Guilt-Free Recipes on the Planet.

Your book has its own hook. Use the hook to categorize your book and open up a world of multiple perspectives, genres, audiences and buyers for it.