 Mystery: February 11, 2015 Issue [#6825] |
  Mystery
This week: Thrillers & Suspense Edited by: Jeff  
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"The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense
of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery."
-- Anaïs Nin
Mystery Trivia of the Week: According to Vanity Fair's January 2015 article about James Patterson, the famous author has over 300 million copies of his books in print, and an income of approximately $90 million in the last year alone. In the year 2013, one out of every twenty-six hardcover books sold was a Patterson title, and estimates are that his books account for nearly 30% of all of his publisher's revenue... and Little, Brown is no small publishing house! 
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THRILLERS & SUSPENSE
Thrillers and suspense novels are a bit of a tricky genre, because they kind of get scattered around with other genres depending on the organization system of wherever you're looking. Here on Writing.Com, for example, "Thrillers/Suspense" is a distinctly separate genre from Mystery. Barnes & Noble, however typically lumps thrillers (and horror) in with overall Fiction/Literature, while putting Crime stories in their Mystery section. When Borders Books was around, though, they had a Horror/Suspense section, which was separate from its Mystery section. And on Amazon, Thrillers & Suspense are part of the "Mystery, Thrillers & Suspense" category. Has anyone besides me experienced the frustration of not being able to find something because, oh, Brad Thor is a mystery writer over here, and a fic/lit author over there, and a thriller author over there?  The worst is when you go into a bookstore and can't find the author you're looking for, then get help from an associate who looks at you like you're an idiot because you don't know where to find Stephen King or James Patterson on the shelves.  I know what kind of books they write, buddy; I just don't know whether you throw them in your fiction section, lump them in with some other genre, or have your own little genre section created just for them! 
Part of this confusion, I think, comes from the fact that thriller and suspense aren't necessarily about plot as much as they're about emotion. Thriller and suspense is mostly defined as using tension or excitement to stimulate the audience's mood and create anxiety, uncertainty, or surprise. Depending on the particulars of your story, it's easy to see how that can apply to a broad range of genres. If you're creating a zombie story, it might be considered a sci-fi or horror thriller, whereas an espionage story, it might be considered either a mystery or action thriller. The problem is that, like romance (or mystery for that matter), thriller/suspense is a genre that can either stand on its own, or augment another genre by incorporating it into another set of genre conventions. In addition to a straight thriller/suspense story, you can quite easily and quickly find yourself in a crime/thriller, western/thriller, fantasy/thriller, erotica/thriller, or any number of other genre crossovers.
As a reader, this problem can be a minor annoyance, but technology is largely making it a moot point. Worst case scenario, you have to wander into a bookstore and suffer the mild embarrassment of asking a store employee where they keep the Dan Brown. With the sharp increase of online shopping in recent years, even that is becoming a thing of the past now that we can easily type the author's name into a search engine. From there you can do everything from visit the author's website or Amazon page (which makes finding and ordering their books a cinch) to going onto a bookseller's website and having the book put on hold for you if picking it up from the local bookstore is still your thing. When it comes to readers, the "is thriller/suspense a genre unto itself" problem is shrinking by the day.
But what about writers? How do thriller/suspense writers best categorize their own work?
The good news is that if you're selling on Amazon, you may not have to. Authors can have their work represented in multiple different categories depending on the subject matter. So unlike a physical book at a bookstore, you can find Stephen King's work on Amazon by navigating to different horror lists. For example, at the time of this writing, Stephen King's last book (Revival) is currently charting as follows:
#1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Suspense > Horror
#2 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Horror > United States
#6 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Horror
So Stephen King isn't relegated to just one list or one little corner of Amazon. Because of the way his book is set up and categorized on that retailer, he can simultaneously be found in the Mystery, Thriller & Suspense section AND the Literature & Fiction section. And it's not uncommon for other e-tailers to create the same kind of overlapping categories for their products to make it easier for their customers to browse. After all, it's easier to tag a book with an additional genre on a website than it is to physically locate it in more than one place in a store!
For brick and mortar stores, there's not a lot you can do to tell them how they should categorize your books. That said, it never hurts to see where similar authors are being placed in the store, so you can get some idea of where your material will likely end up. I think it's more important that writers are proactive about informing their readers of where to find their work. If you have a mailing list or a website or Twitter account or any other way of communicating with your readers, it might be worth your time to look into non-internet based retailers (at least the major ones or those that are convenient for you to pop into) and provide a little info to help your fans find you. For example, "My new thriller is out! You can pick up a copy in the fiction/literature section of Barnes & Noble!" can go a long way toward pointing your audience in the right direction.
Thriller/Suspense writing is a very popular genre; unfortunately, it's a genre that not everyone knows what to do with or how to classify since there are so many different types of thriller/suspense writing. If you're trying to get your work out there, especially if you're trying to build a brand for yourself, it might be worth your time to investigate what genre you're being listed under at a particular retailer and making sure it's an appropriate fit for your material.
Until next time,
Jeff
If you're interested in checking out my work:
"Blogocentric Formulations"
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I encourage you to check out the following mystery items:
EXCERPT: The two hunting buffs spread their desert camo colored mats out on the packed surface of the overlook. Both were dressed in khaki jump suits . They took a minute to look down on their assigned kill zone.
EXCERPT: It was a bleak Scottish August when reality began to fray at the edges. For Peter Lennon the first sign that the world was no longer in order was the moment the most beautiful woman on the planet looked him in the eye and asked a question.
EXCERPT: I am afraid of the dark. Not what lies within it, or even the not knowing of what's in it, but the dark itself. I suppose it's the essence of the dark and maybe what lies beyond it, but I will let you know, I am afraid of the dark. I am... well, my name doesn't really matter. All you need to know is that I am 13 years old and I am afraid of the dark.
EXCERPT: His hand slowly went for his left pocket as he drew out a cigarette from his right, all without breaking eye contact with the figure across the table. Fat sausages of fingers wrapped around a sleek lighter, glowing blue thanks to a small LED attached to the bottom of the case, as if to trick others into thinking that it was more than a crude device of friction. A small orange glow lit up the man’s stern face with a curious scar above his left eye. Stubble covered the lower part of his face as if to clearly indicate the man’s strong masculinity, yet not a single hair grew on the top of the man’s head leaving a surprisingly dull and shine free dome despite the large electric light over the metal table.
EXCERPT: It's December 5th, a cold winter's evening sets the scene, with me Tony, finally ready and waiting. The evening moon shines through the trees, illuminating the white snow like a spotlight and revealing the target in sight. "There's a storm brewing," I tell myself before preparing to get warm. Nestled amongst wet foliage wearing fully camouflaged attire - I've made my mind up.
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