By Morgan Hazelwood, 09/12/2025
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When you go to a bookstore or traditional library, the novels are sorted by category, and then author’s last name. But, these days, a new subgenre emergences from BookTok almost weekly. We’ve got ‘litRPG’ — or literary role-playing games, where those D&D players turn their adventures into stories. We’ve got romantasy — fantasy romances. And, if you’ve been here a minute, you know I’m ready to kick off the ‘cozy sci-fi’. How much does genre really matter, and are subgenres just a gimmick?
How do we categorize novels?
Novels are works of fiction, but there are many ways we categorize them. Here are some of the most common.
- Age Range – (Adult, New Adult, YA, Middle Grade, Chapter Book, Picture Book, Board Book)
- Classification- (Commercial, Literary, Upmarket (half-way between Commercial and Literary, sometimes the same as Book Club), Book Club, High-Concept, Poetry, Short Stories, Graphic Novels)
- Genre – (Keep going)
- Subgenre – (Keep going)
- Elements – sometimes, readers or agents go looking for particular story elements. (retellings, coming of age, fairy tale, mythology, non-western cultures, queer, multicultural, family saga, Christian, etc)
What is a Genre?
A genre is a type of book that follows certain themes or tropes. When you pick up a mystery, you know the story’s gonna focus on ‘who dun it’. In a fantasy, you know the story isn’t set in the real world. Even non-fiction has genres, not that I’m going to deep dive into those. Biographies are supposed to be wholly factual accounts of a person’s life (or a portion of their lives).
The 9 basic fiction genres are:
- Action & Adventure
- Contemporary
- Crime & Mystery
- Fantasy & Science Fiction (Speculative Fiction)
- Historical Fiction
- Horror
- Literary Fiction
- Romance
- Thriller & Suspense
Each genre has particular tropes they use. Remember, tropes are just story patterns, they don’t have to be cliches — and even cliches have their place. Fantasy books aren’t set in the real world, romance novels have people forming relationships, and I’m pretty sure horses are required in a Western.
Why pick one genre?
A book’s genre label is there so the right audience can find it. Period.
There are books that are cross-genre with broad appeal, but your book is probably leaning more on one set of tropes or another. A Fantasy-Romance with a tragic ending? Cannot be marketed as a Romance. A Historical-Horror? Might be Gothic, or might not. But, look to the pacing to see if your novel is Historical with Horror elements, or a Horror with Historical elements. Is it more about the historical events and setting? Or is it more about the creeping dread?
I understand. Most cross-genre authors hate to pick. After all, there’s a reason we blended the genres.
Agents do not care. They want to know that you understand the market and who your potential audience is already reading. You need to prove that you’ve done your research and that the market already exists for your book.
Amazon does not care. If you market a book to the wrong half of your genre blend? You will end up with 1-star reviews because you did not meet genre expectations, the algorithm will hide your book, and your book launch with stumble out of the gate.
What about subgenres?
Subgenre is all about the vibes.
Cozy mysteries? Are about as light-hearted as a mystery gets for our amateur sleuths, with off-screen violence and closed-door intimate encounters. Where as your thrillers are all about the anxiety, sudden violence, and high stakes.
What if you’re writing women-centric stories? If it’s upmarket contemporary, you’ve probably got Chick Lit. If your story is more literary and less quippy, it’s likely Women’s Fiction.
Urban fantasy is set in a modern-esque city, often with vampires, werewolves, and magic. The city is integral to the plot, and there’s often a strong undercurrent of mystery, action, and a strong romantic subplot. Meanwhile, Magical Realism looks like our world, and the fantastical elements are mundane and integrated in the world — while being historically written from a Latino perspective. While there are some arguments to be made about using the Magical Realism label for other non-American writers when they use their culture as the basis for the story, proceed with caution.
Romance has dozens of subgenres. It has rom-coms, dark romance, romantasy, romantic thrillers, historical romance, the list goes on and on.
Science Fiction can be military, space opera, dystopian, steampunk (the fantasy flip-side of which is Gaslamp), space fantasy, etc…
I’m not going to try to list all of the subgenres out there today, but if you don’t see them on agents’ manuscript wish lists, you probably want a broader spectrum subgenre to query with. When querying an agent, limit yourself to no more than two genres/subgenres. That doesn’t mean you can’t throw in a ‘with Whatever-genre elements’, but be careful that you don’t end up with a genre description that runs onto three lines.
Beware, whether you’re dealing with agents or readers, the more obscure the genre, the smaller the audience. This can be good or bad — depending on your story, your actual audience, and how much hustle you have in you. Many self-published authors find that building out a niche can be critical in finding their fan base.
Note: On Amazon, you get to select 3 subgenres these days (until they change the rules again). If one set of subgenres isn’t getting you the audience you want, try tweaking them!
What about obscure sub-subgenres?
Amazon has done away with ‘Best Selling Author Of The Sub-Sub-Subgenre I Just Made Up‘, to the relief of readers and disappointment of a small subset of authors. So, many people wonder why we still have all of these super niche sub-subgenre tags. Are they just made up so people can rank high on some book list?
For those of you who come from a fanfic background, these sub-subgenres are clearly descendants of fanfic hashtags, and with those tags come a built in audience.
Even more importantly, these niche sub-subgenres can help answer what librarians have been asked since the beginning of storytelling.
“I loved that book. Do you have more like that?“
Sub-subgenres get you, the reader, more books like the one you loved, but different. Because everyone knows you can only read a book for the first time once.
