I was talking to my pal Zoe this morning, and she passed on the phenomenal news that she has risen to #17 in the Vampire Romance category at Amazon with her novella Kept. Congrats Zoe! But that’s not exactly what I wanted to talk about this morning. After congratulations, we got to talking about how Amazon’s categorization system is just screwed up. Underneath the Romance category they have an entire section devoted to Vampire Romance–which is obviously not a problem, given the explosive popularity of that subgenre of paranormal romance. But what IS a problem is that they do not have a Paranormal Romance category at all! All the OTHER paranormal romance books get left in just straight up romance or shunted away into Fantasy, Futuristic and Ghosts. And I don’t know about you, but I do not think of looking in “Fantasy, Futuristic and Ghosts” for my favorite werewolf or other paranormal critter romances. Part of the reason this is an issue for me (aside from the fact that unless I’m looking for a particular book, I can’t seem to find anything) is that when I get ready to release my novella later this year, I don’t have a category. There’s not a vamp in the book except for one mentioned as an aside in ONE scene. And I think it’s totally ludicrous that given the explosion of popularity of the entire paranormal genre beyond vampires in the last half of the decade, there’s no broad Paranormal Romance category. I was annoyed enough about it this morning that I emailed Amazon.
What I didn’t know when I sent my email was that Barnes and Noble totally has their crap together and does things the right way. THEY have a Paranormal Romance category that breaks things down into LOTS of subcategories. Look at this breakdown! This is EXACTLY what Amazon should be doing!
In Paranormal & Fantastic Romance
- Fantasy Romance
- Paranormal Contemporary Romance
- Paranormal Historical Romance
- Paranormal Romantic Thrillers
- Romance – Psychics, Sorcerers and Witches
- Science Fiction Romance
- Time Travel Romance
- Vampire Romance
So I am making a call to all Paranormal Romance readers to EMAIL Amazon and let them know that their crappy categorization isn’t going to cut it. Tell them that Barnes and Noble does it right and that if they don’t update their system accordingly, you’re going to take your business there (even if you aren’t–the threat’s always good).
If you’re a blogger, help me start a movement! Post about this yourself! Tweet it! Talk about it on Facebook! Maybe if enough of us band together to complain about it, they’ll actually do something to correct the problem.
4 thoughts on “Calling All Paranormal Romance Readers!”
LOL thanks for that subtle shout out! haha! You rock. Anyway I’m telling you I’m about to truly start switching and become a B&N.com customer instead of an Amazon customer. I mean their Nook kicks the shit out of Amazon’s Kindle, they have their categorization system set up better, etc. I’ll obviously still sell on Amazon cause you want to be in as many different outlets as possible, but B&N is about to win me totally over.
good idea! thanks for the tweet that kicked off the awareness campaign 😉
I think I’m making this my “cause” for 2010!
And it’s a great cause – ’cause PR is what I write, too! It might make it easier for your readers to comply if you provided a nice hot link to Amazon’s email addy, though… getting ready to go look for it myself 😉