Knowing Your Niche: finding your genre fit
by Damon Suede
(A-game Advice was a monthly column offering practical
tips for winning promo that fits your personal style, strategy,
and measure of success.
Where do you fit on the genre bookshelf?
As members of RWA, we all write romance,
but our books, our voices, and our fan bases vary wildly. In our
promotional efforts we need to stand out from our peers for the
right reasons. Some
authors specialize by subgenre, some by heat or suspense levels,
others jump between every category on record and several that
haven't been invented yet. Whatever their approach, all authors face
the task of clarifying why their books are extraordinary, so
building your audience begins with establishing your place on the
genre bookshelf: your niche.
Essentially your niche is the stretch of
the virtual bookshelf that your books fill perfectly and that your
ideal audience and likely allies seek out instinctively. Genre
publishing is above all things an industry that aims to meet and
exceed expectations. Niche acts as the bedrock of every author
brand, establishing the tone, topics, and terrain of your creative
output.
A winning author brand pinpoints that unique place
you occupy within your genre community as a personality and a voice.
It's one thing to say you write paranormal, another to say you write
vampires, and still something else to claim comedic middle grade
steampunk vampires as your turf.
For best results you should cultivate a
niche in a section of the market you find inspiring and inviting.
Fans and colleagues know when you put your heart into a book and
when you're phoning it in. It is the area of excellence specific to
you. Nailing your niche requires significant research, intuition,
and self-awareness. Stake out your turf on the genre shelf by
communicating:
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your knowledge of and affection for the niche.
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your singular appeal to the niche.
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your options for engaging the niche authentically.
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your ability to claim a distinct space within the niche.
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your value as a talented and trustworthy professional within the niche.
By articulating what you do best, you
signal to readers, colleagues, and the media what they can expect
from you, attracting the right kind of attention to your work from
the folks who will find it most resonant. That's a win–win–win for
all parties involved. By default, your niche will reinforce your
brand and attract similar folks into your professional orbit. No two
authors are the same, but you have genre neighbors. These authors:
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share a subgenre, tone, setting, or style with you.
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appear regularly on genre panels with you at multiple cons and workshops.
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get compared to you and your books, for good or ill.
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will be recommended to folks buying your book online.
Niche allies can spark synergistic promo,
because their fervent fans are likely to be yours as well. And far
from competing for readers or poaching marketshare, cooperative
promotion can improve readership for all concerned by boosting the
best of your subgenre.
Claiming your niche needn't pigeonhole
you, but rather flags fertile terrain within the genre for your
promo efforts. Likewise, drilling down into what you've written
needn't limit what you plan to write. If anything, conveying a clear
sense of your niche allows you to expand your audience gradually and
organically over the course of your career.
Find your unique niche and learn as much
about it as you can. Besides gauging the market and zeitgeist, this
awareness will help you to network, promote, and set trends rather
than chasing them. You’ll learn which classic warhorse tropes keep
‘em in the saddle and sidestep the ones that have been beaten to
death. Identifying your niche will help you collaborate with peers
and distinguish yourself from them as well.
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Where do the members of this tribe gather and talk?
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Why and how are they drawn to these types of books?
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What other adjoining niches and subjects appeal to them?
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What do they crave and avoid? Who do they trust to recommend titles?
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How do you resemble and stand apart from your bookshelf neighbors?
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Anything perennial or overused? What are the warhorses and dead horses?
As your niche expands and your career
allows, you'll annex additional areas of the genre, but first you
need to face your base. What makes you special to them? Establish a
basic measure of saturation and market access so that you can gauge
when you’ve reached the next level in the industry.
Originally published as part of A Game Advice for the Romance Writers Report.
If you wish to republish this article, just drop me a line.