A Rose by any other name -- would be difficult to sell ...

... Or ...

I came here expecting horses

There's been a lot of hoopla of late over genre, cross-genre, tagging, labeling -- whatever you want to call it. Writers agonize over what genre their book fits into, which agent/small press/publisher to submit their work to, what tags to use on Amazon and so on.

The situation strikes me as one in which we've built the buggy and now feel compelled to find the one and only horse to pull it -- or perhaps the perfect compliment of horses to pull it.

News flash: You can switch horses. Anytime.

That horse, er, label is, and always has been, a marketing tool. It does more to help focus marketing efforts on niche groups (reader target audiences) than it does to help niche groups find books to read. (think of it as the difference between being pursued by a guy you'd probably like vs. a guy you'd find boring) (Now, that's not a bad thing -- although you'd probably be missing some gems).

We want people to read our books, but hey, even Coca Cola targets audiences. Sometimes companies even create niche groups (anybody remember the "Pepsi Generation"?). However, until you get to be your own genre (Steven King, Lee Child, JK Rowling, Janet Evanovich ....) you have to target a genre if you expect to sell. That doesn't mean you can't include different genres in your work, it means you have to be able to use a label without lying (too much) if you want to sell your books easily.

Easily? 

Yes. Stop laughing. "Easily" only because otherwise, it becomes a lot more work. That's probably why marketing departments in publishing houses have been seen making purchasing decisions (I was shocked, too, when I found that out. If I was in marketing -- which I was years ago -- wouldn't it be my job to sell what my company produced, not tell my company what they should make?) (yes, I'm perfectly aware of the value of market analysis -- did it myself)

As writers, we not only need to learn to write well enough to hold a reader's interest (otherwise we write ONLY for ourselves), but we have to learn how to stir up excitement in a specific group by using a very few well chosen phrases....not exactly lying, but selective truth-telling.

We can do that, right? We write fiction, after all.

The labeling/genre situation is far too established to fight and conquer at this point -- and I'm not sure it's such a good idea, anyway. However, we can learn to market to target audiences who, once having discovered a good read, don't seem to mind multiple genres at all.

So, if you want to sell a rose don't call it "a flowering bush that requires a lot of fertilizer, water and spraying for insects and disease, and produces blooms for a couple of months out of the year." Call it "a bush that produces armloads of fragrant blossoms," "a velvety flower given to one's heart's desire," "an ancient symbol of passion," AND call it a "Rose." People get that. Those of us who love roses, don't really mind the other, un-poetic stuff -- we know it and don't want to hear it. The other sometimes-truthful description simply feeds our interest.

Animals in Books -- an emotional hook

I really like animals in books. No, that's wrong. I love animals in books. I love the ordinariness of cats and dogs that act just exactly like cats and dogs. I also love it when I must suspend disbelief and accept behavior that simply would never happen in real life. Even made-up, fanciful animals are fun. In fact, it's not just in books where animals delight me. Movies, TV, plays, you name it. The animals can steel the show and seal the deal for me.

Writing "Blackie" in Death By A Dark Horse was a joy. I dipped into emotions, feel, and smell that were right at the surface. No digging around in unpleasant, buried memories. Even those scenes where Thea has dressage training problems were easily accessible. Difficulties in riding are usually learning experiences -- events you want to keep available so you can remember how to solve the problem when it occurs again.

Best of all -- from a novel-writing standpoint -- the relationship between my protagonist and her horse add a dimension to her that would be otherwise difficult to show, and wouldn't be nearly as much fun to read. Any time a writer includes an animal in the story and shows a character interacting with it they are accessing the reader on an emotional level. When your aim is to hook the reader you can't beat emotions to get the job done.

In a book I read recently, one of the main characters began acting in a rather dangerous manner. His behavior had me worried. I'd wanted him to be a good guy. In fact, the author had built the story up to make his good-guy-dependability essential to the plot -- to the survival of the other characters. I was worried, really worried. But when the guy fell asleep (worn out as he was from his bad behavior) and three dogs and two cats cuddled up and refused to leave him, I knew (even if the other characters were still doubting) that at heart he was good and the author would be using internal as well as external conflict to challenge this character. The author didn't need to say anything else, the character didn't need to do anything different. I was hooked on an emotional level I had no control over. My initial prediction of the demise of this character was replaced by the foreshadowing of a plot twist. I wanted to find out how this character was going to solve his problem and what was going to happen next. I was rooting for him because of the animals.

Those of us who love any animal feel the connection in our hearts, and have felt it since we were small children with big imaginations. As writers, it's an opportunity to make use of, no matter how brief, that will impact the reader on a visceral level.

I love animals in books. It's a relationship that's worth a thousand unwritten words.