From Category to Genre
in a Bookselling Sense
Or
When Sales and Popularity
Begin to Command Respect
We all have friends who might look at our reading tastes as being a bit eccentric.
You know who I mean—those who call it "sword and sorcery stuff" and seem to think that every fantasy needs a Frazetta or Boris cover that will appeal primarily to adolescent boys in search of cheap thrills.
There was a time when their point of view was in the majority and fantasy titles were relegated to the same level of respect afforded to other "category" fiction titles.
"Category" is a pejorative. For example, in category terms, westerns were "horse operas" or "shoot 'em ups," romances were "bodice rippers," and fantasies were "that Conan stuff." And the principal venues for sales were drugstore and gas station wire racks next to this month's issue of Good Housekeeping, Popular Mechanics, or Playboy. Category books were sold at the bottom of the list and engendered little respect from either the publisher or the bookseller.
Then, a funny thing happened.
Category books began to break out and sell like hotcakes, and not just at the truck stops but in the book stores as well.
Louis L'Amour became a topselling author of western fiction (notice "western fiction"; that's a genre designation, not just a category), romances became either "historical romances," "regency romances" or "contemporary romances" (again, with genre-specific designations) and fantasies, well . . . let me tell you what happened.
First, the powers that be began to split hairs.
Tolkien wasn't really fantasy; it was fiction, just like Richard Adams's talking rabbit novel, Watership Down, and John Gardner's Grendel. Any new book that commanded an equal amount of respect like, say, The Mists of Avalon, was also obviously fiction, and therefore not like those category fantasy titles that appeared in paperback and usually were part of some large series like Conan (you know, just like Mack Bolan except without the guns and gadgets).
They were considered a flavor-of-the-month sort of thing where the authors didn't really matter except to a small but rabid fandom.
The truth was, however, that the fandom wasn't that small, and in no time at all their buying power became more noticeable.
In 1982, Ogre, Ogre by Piers Anthony made the New York Times paperback bestseller list, something category books were not expected to do.
Now, Ogre, Ogre was a paperback original (no hardcover edition), part of an ongoing series, with no special movie tie-in (à la Star Wars) or critical prestige.
It made the list solely because it sold or, more specifically, because enough people wanted to purchase it as soon as it was available—and subsequent books in the series followed the same pattern.
Soon, other authors' works followed suit with successful paperback series making the list, such as Foster's Spellsinger books, Weis and Hickman's Dragonlance and Dark Sword series and Lackey's Valdemar books. And in no time at all every publishing house realized that a commercially successful fantasy series was every bit as significant as a bestselling mystery or historical romance. Such books no longer received a "category" treatment because there was the potential for even greater sales.
Such books became treated like "fiction" titles and, from a bookselling standpoint, fantasy went from being a category to a genre.
As a result of these new sales and the attention they engendered in-house, science fiction and fantasy lines sprang up everywhere, with independent new publishers specializing in the genre beginning to command respect. Books that were formerly paperback originals became hardcovers.
Fantasy had become a force to be reckoned with.
It had gained the respect of booksellers and publishers alike, the same respect that its fans had had for years.
This book contains brand new stories set in some of the series that were part of the bestselling phenomenon that brought this about, written by the authors who earned their now well-deserved respect.
Enjoy!
—Brian Thomsen