Thursday, February 27, 2020

Expectations of Genre



Expectations, everyone has them but how do implement them within genres. Esp. if the Writer Mixes them. Plus: (CURSE ALERT!)

  • Mass produced series for KU, how that effects things.
  • Its a self-eating cycle. (You have money from other McD books, feed the promoship, eat away at other genres, blasting it everywhere. KU reader might not even care, they just click to the next book if its "good enough" satisfies but doesn't wow people. Being Good Enough shouldn't keep these books in "out of genre and in the top 100" placement.

IF your genre is a power house: IE Westerns, Romance, or Mysteries. You are going to have to bring your A-Game. Please be kind and don't flood tags your book is not related to.

I get these same 10-20 writers I see flooding various sci fi/fantasy tags want to eat, maintain that 4 to 6 figure income but its like spraying canned cheese all over the buffet for the reader.

Why is space opera or mil sci fi in the steampunk tag? Ahhh, I am going to call this McD Booking. Service "billions" but its standard fair. You don't have your A-Game going. Its just: Produce, Produce, Produce.

Gotta stay on top with the Algorithm. So much Shovel Ware. Reminds me of Steam's Greenlight Program. Some gems but most of it is strait up shoveware shit. Not good calories for readers. Paying lipservice to a genre but not truly feeding it.

This makes it harder for readers to find what they want. Besides what's constantly Ouroboros at the top. Oh X, Y or Z sells the best, lets shit out something really quick, don't care if its subpar, get it out on to the tarmac. Expect Choppy Landings. 

Ill use Galaxy's Edge as an Example of the Good Way to do it:

  • Primary Genre Splat: Space Opera and Mil Sci Fi. Cole and Anspach Nail it to the Wall. Epic Delicious Burger. What you see is what you get and its produced wonderfully. 
  • Start Here
  • Plus Galaxy Ascendant: The other Star Wars not Star Wars. I will stand by both series til I die of some sort of Fl Gator. Here 
  • Be a Master. Not a Mass Producer. (When I say Mass Producer I don't mean speed either.)  
Mass Producer in this sense is someone who just writes the book, sometimes in a month or less, slaps it onto the grill but it has no soul to it. Its just a ho-hum burger with no spices or taste. No personal touch to it. It's shoved out onto market and makes that writer just enough to keep them above water in that mythic "I write for a living" finance category. But its not that writer's A GAME effort at all. Its just a flat plain burger. A C+ effort at best. 

Yes, I am being that harsh because I don't want to make C grade burgers myself. Frack off with that shit. Give the readers your personal best. Be bold and add those damned spices. Look at what PulpRev is doing. Then you will know the difference in true soul products.

So what about the Genre stuff then. Well:

  • Have the tropes associated to it. Again, my poor superhero prose section is getting the shit beat out of it in this part. Nothing related to supers usually ever get to the top 100. Fuck off already Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy. Don't want your shovel wear basic burgers in my genre searches anymore.
  • Readers will actively dislike other genres if the x-plat is way off course. I use myself as an example. It makes me have an active distaste for stuff throwing my searches off course. 
  • If you are Primary Romance, List it as Romance. Does that mean you fight with millions upon millions of other books rather then 2 million or so in Sci Fi, Yup. 
If you are combining Genres, which one is your primary, and which is the 2ndary? List those as your pre-designated things for your book. In my series case, its looking like it will be Primary Space Opera, 2ndary Superhero Sci Fi. Does that mean Ill be fighting for space with other Space Opera Primary? Yes it will but that's fine by me. I don't want to slap something like Hard Sci Fi on this just because I am researching Dyson Spheres or other various realistic theories. I am doing it so when I put those things in, it will reflect in the descriptions in the series more naturally. 

STOP ADDING NOTHING CHEESE TO THE GENRE TAGS! If someone wants a Space Opera BTL, it better have the fucking Bacon, Tomato, and Let Us Go to Space. Not a Twilight rip off with some Basic Burger Lipservice. 


Can it have romance? Yes, but make it a part of that cake, not 90% of it, then its a ROMANCE. 

Sorry for the cursing, I usually only do that when exceptionally frustrated to all ends of the Universe. 

As I go through more reading and writing I am sure I'll be able to develop a wider range of ways to express myself. For now, Ill keep trying my best to find things that look interesting. That make sense for the genres they are in. 

If your book is mil sci fi primary, it doesn't belong with steampunk, esp if it has ADVANCED FUTURISTIC TECH in it. Its why people can't find the mech books they want either. Certain Cheese Noodles are spraying in that direction too. Pretty soon, once the dust settles, some might be surprised where the whale readers like me went to. Well we packed our bags and found greener pastures to dive into.

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