Trying to find the right genre.

[SheilaT]

5. And of course your very question brings up the entire

issue of genres themselves.

My local library has a librarian who sometimes labels books in the most random ways. I'm a reader of science fiction, and I'm trying to remember which s-f author that librarian has in the mainstream fiction. I've also found books that could only be called s-f if you operate on the assumption that all fiction is some how science fiction, in the s-f section.

Or, if an author is considered "mainstream", her books will never be in a genre section. No matter what. If he's an s-f author primarily, everything he writes will be presumed to be s-f.

You can expand this to cover all genres.

My essential point is that you might want to consider your book to be mainstream by default, and start from there. Let the agent or publishing house label it, if they must. Unless you can call it a romance novel, and it's my understanding that romance sells incredibly well for the most part.