rcc

What do publishers really want? I'm looking for advice from those who have published or who work in the publishing industry. I wrote a mystery/thriller and after going through two agents who only submit to the top houses, I was getting rejections like: "reads more like a mass market original than a trade paperback," or "we're looking for mysteries that read more like general fiction." Though I do touch on some divergent issues in the novel, every scene advances the mystery/thriller plot line. My agents and I think that Babylon Bayou is clearly a mystery/thriller. I'm perplexed. It seems that the criteria for what they want is a moving target.
I have been working on a new novel which is general fiction, a family crisis drama. After telling my agent the overview, she warns me about any general fiction category because she said publishers are trying to categorize novels into one of the other genres like romance, mystery, suspense, etc. So, my question to her was: In today's pub climate, would novels like Empire Falls by Russo or The Corrections by Franzen even be published or would the publisher try to shoehorn them, by some arbitrary criteria, into a genre category? Needless to say, I am puzzled and somewhat frustrated. Any non-speculative insights into the labyrinthe which is the publisher's mind? Thanks.

SeattleCPA

I observe that if you've got agents submitting your work, you are definitely on the right track... Maybe you just need to keep working at it and fine-tune your plans...

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Mike C

I agree with Seattle. The market moves around, depending on what publishers perceive as sellers. For example, last year paranormal and inspirational romance were hot topics (within the romance genre). Good news for one of my clients, who had representation with a good agent and was finishing rewrites to her paranormal romance novel. This year... agent says publishers won't touch inspirational or paranormal for love nor money. Next year, maybe they'll be hot again. If not,the year after.

It's no good trying to second-guess the industry; it moves to fast. If you try to write what's hot today, by the time you've written it it'll most likely be tepid. All you can do is write what you write make sure your agent is on-side and enthused and start writing the next one.

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rcc

Thanks. As for publisher staying away from general fiction, I wonder if it has more to do with marketing than content. If you categorize a book as mystery or romance or suspense, the reader has an idea, or at least they believe they have an idea, of what to expect from that genre and its conventions. If the book is categorized as general fiction, I think the reader does not know what to expect beyond what they can gleen from the back jacket blurb. Maybe it is harder to pull a reader in under the general fiction category if they can't readily know what to expect and this is why publishers are avoiding the category.