THE CAREER NOVELIST
plan carefully. Your story combines genre elements, but what is its
primary audience? In which section of the bookstore will it probably
find most of its likely readers?
That is your target market. Do not worry about the other markets.
Trying to reach customers in several categories at once makes it
likely only that you will reach none at all. Marketing is about what
is possible. The objective is to get the greatest number of customers
in one category to buy the novel. That, at least, will produce some
degree of measurable success.
In approaching agents and editors, you might try presenting your
novel as something they understand how to sell. Avoid overloading
your pitch. For example, this pitch seems off-putting:
"My novel uses one of the most popular science fiction devices ever:
time travel! Using a time-travel method that is actually possible—as
my novel shows—our heroine journeys to the eighteenth century and
meets her twentieth-century husband in a prior incarnation. Can she
love him then as totally as she loves him now? Romance fans will
adore this story, and science fiction readers will find it fascinating too."What is odd about this pitch is that it promises to deliver more
audience than any crossover could possibly manage. Romance fans
resist science fiction gimmicks, and SF fans hate large doses of
florid romance writing. This pitch is a no-win.
Now try this:
"My novel is a romance. The heroine is a widow so lost in grief that
she travels back in time to meet her dead husband in a previous
life—only to find that he is a popular hero who has wrongfully been
condemned to death. Can she save him? And can she twice surren-
der her heart to a dying man?This pitch is better because it does not promise too much. It
aims the novel at an appropriate market. It also downplays an
aspect of the story—time travel—that may be problematic.
Pick a primary market, then sell that market a product that it, in
turn, feels confident of selling to the public. Keep crossover ele-
ments in the background. For most crossover novelists, that is the
way to win.