As I've often said, self-publishing is dirt easy. You write a book, you upload the PDF, you spend a day or two tweeking the format and you're self published. It's the self promoting that's a pain in the rear.
And one of my biggest challenges has been this: What category do I put the book in?
When publishing a book you need to assign it a category code. That generally decides what portion of the fiction section it gets filled in. I really chewed on this a while trying to find just the right one and still feel like I struggle.
On the one hand, it is a humorous book. I take time, through Allison and her friends to poke at all kinds of conventions. I'm not sure it's funny enough, though, to be considered a Humor or Satire, though as really it's light-hearted fun as geeks mock geeks. So Humor's out.
There's the overarching story line of Allison's Stalker. Definite thriller material. But as my wife loves to point out, while it's freaky, it never quite rises to the typical "Thriller" level of "Mortal Peril." I could call it a Thriller but then I'm putting it in company of books that leave you afraid to sleep with the lights off. Probably not really well suited to that crowd.
There is a romantic lead. Allison does hope to find some happiness over the weekend. Ah HA! It's a Romance Novel. Only, it really doesn't have the usual trappings of a romance novel and really having bare chested men on the cover would just look out of place for how the story unfolds.
I'm left wondering if I should re-define it simply as "Chick Lit". I've never been overly comfortable with that designation as it feels like a cop out "Here's a book that's got a 20-30 female lead that doesn't fit into any other category."
Though, perhaps I should accept that what I have is a fun book that has a 20 something female lead that doesn't fit into any other category....
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