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A Rose Is A Rose Is A Rose
February 26, 2008

Have reviewed the lively discussions of the Booksquares and the Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books, with thanks, and with the side-benefit reminding me how much The Kommandant's Girl rocked, whatever its category.

(If you don't know what discussions I'm talking about, see the comments to my last post.)

A follow-up: we know that marketing departments make a distinction between regular fiction and romance. Mass market books further divide into different categories of romance (categories that often get printed on the covers), while trade paperbacks and hardcovers split fewer hairs. Right?  

And, further:

We know that the airports and supermarkets distinguish between mass market and other kinds of books (i.e., those revolving wire racks), but that the booksuperstores don't --- or at least, not as rigidly.

And if that's true, I'm wondering if format (hc, trade paper, mm) influences how something gets categorized, and vice versa.

And I'm also wondering, since format seems to hold more weight in some stores, if having "Mass Market" as a separate category for book reviews is more or less useful than having one called, say... "Romance"?

If this were a historical paranormal romance with F&SF elements, I could shape-shift myself into May Bookstaver, and go back in time, and ask Aunt Gertrude herself--but I'd have to get past Alice first.

xo M

Posted by Michael Scharf on February 26, 2008 | Comments (0)