laurenwaters

I had such a hard time fitting my square-peg-of-a-book into the round-holed genres that agents represented. My book definitely has a fantasy component with an after-life ‘what if’, yet it certainly isn’t the sword-wielding, princess-saving, threatened-kingdom high fantasy most are used to.

My book also has a strong historical component as well. I’ve researched these time periods and tried my best to submerge the reader into an accurate and tangible setting, yet it is not your basic historical. I thought I found a better genre in historical fantasy, the best of both worlds I presumed. Until I read some and realized my book was still not fitting completely in these genres. When I showed others my historical fantasy cover they complained that it wasn’t representing the usual ancient magical covers of the genre.

Nothing seemed to fit.

I knew my cover is exactly what I needed. My focus is the heaven in which my character is in limbo, reviewing her past lives in a lucid remembrance. It is the thread throughout the series and it’s central to everything.

So, it wasn’t until I came across another reincarnation novel in a book search on Amazon that I realized what my genre was.

Reincarnation Fantasy!

Threads: The Reincarnation of Anne Boleyn by Neil Gavin is listed under reincarnation fantasy, a sub-genre of fantasy (I’ll have to add this to my to-read list, it sounds great). So I’ve been labeling it wrong this whole time! I thought I might have even created a whole new genre, but here it is! My series is definitely a reincarnation fantasy.

There may not be any agents that represent this genre in particular and it might be a very small grouping (490 titles on Amazon), but you have more chance of becoming a big fish in a small pond. Right? I still have to choose historical fantasy in the limited drop-down lists found on some sites, but for all other situations this is my genre.

Who knows? Maybe it will become more popular in the future.