One of the discussions that comes up a lot is whether or not a romance requires a HEA. And from a genre standpoint… well, it absolutely does. Readers think romance will include an HEA, or at least a HFN, so deciding to kill your main character tragically won’t go over too well.
I’m very not surprised that In Life, In Death has sales that aren’t super great, considering I slapped the “NO HEA” warning on there. And, quite honestly, as I was writing it, I did consider putting it in a category that wasn’t Romance, because… even as a dark romance, readers still expect some sort of HFN.
The problem is in how we categorize books. In the pre-digital age, it made sense to put every book into a single category so it could easily be slotted into a bookshelf in a brick-and-mortar store. Early digital bookstores had some software limitations and used the systems that were already in place. So that meant single categories (or maybe up to two or three) categories for each book.
But at this point, I have to ask: can’t we do better? One of the things I love about modern digital archives is tagging. In Calibre, I can slap multiple tags on a single book (my most used: “m/m“, followed by “romance”) and then filter down to works that contain multiple tags. If a friend asks for m/m sci-fi recommendations, I can pop over to Calibre, click on both “m/m” and “sci-fi,” and find works my friend might like. But wait! My friend can’t stand aliens, and only wants futuristic space opera stuff, no aliens please. So I simply filter out the “aliens” tag, and get something more tailored to my friend’s tastes.
I’m not saying that categories don’t have their place, but there are so many works that fit in multiple categories, or don’t fit a single category quite right. I’ve used Queer Romance Ink to find some stuff, but it’s not a digital bookstore, and authors have to opt in to that one, which means not all works can be found there.
So please, Amazon, Smashwords, other online bookstores that might cater more to my niches… please implement tags and tag searches! I just want to be able to find exactly what I’m looking for (and allow others to find my books based on that too)!
In the meantime, I guess I’ll keep sticking my dark, sort of romantic, sort of erotic, sort of fantasy, sort of tragic novels into categories that don’t quite fit.(1)
That’ll be A Coward, A Warrior, which should be up for sale this weekend! It’s undergone quite a few revisions and is significantly longer than when I first got into editing. I hope those of you who enjoy stories even without an HEA (although, not quite as tragic as In Life, In Death) will check it out. I really love the characters in this one, and I hope you like them too. ❤️
(1) Incidentally, per Amazon’s guidelines:
[W]e don’t allow books with erotic content to be placed under the categories “Fantasy” or “Science Fiction.” If your fantasy or science fiction book contains erotic content, you are allowed to place it under these browse paths:
- Fiction > Romance > Science Fiction
- Fiction > Romance > Fantasy
That does leave one floundering a bit… what about fantasy/sci-fi novels with erotic content that don’t end in an HEA?