How would you categorize this book?

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StreetCalledHaight

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Greetings, peoples ... ;)

Like you, I'm working to build my own universe of books - I write the Flotilla Series and it's got some decent reviews but I want to build it into a robust universe of the size and scale of other series' like Hunger Games and Star Wars. To do that, I'm trying to do more research about who would enjoy this book so that I can talk to the right people.

Can you help me figure out one piece? Flotilla has a number of potential elements and themes that would appeal to people, but I'm trying to nail down what it really is so that when I offer it to people, they're connecting with it immediately. Here's a brief synopsis - can you help me figure out if it should be called Hard Sci-Fi, Dystopian, Thriller, Literary, YA?

Synopsis: Jim has been thrown from rehab into the ocean to become both a survivor and a hero. He starts life aboard a floating city filled with strange and dangerous characters who work at farming edible fish and other enterprises. It’s a chance for Jim to re-connect with his estranged father but second chances can come with strings attached.

Daily adventures and brushes with death give Jim the chance to grow up and screw up. At the same time, the Colony is also a dangerous ecosystem. Drug-dealing, human trafficking and gambling create fortunes that people will lie, cheat and kill to protect.

The tension explodes when a terrorist attack hits nearby Los Angeles. Jim and his sister Madison are safe for the moment aboard but they are being hunted by angry drug pirates and crooked cop. If Jim and his family are going to survive, he needs to make it happen in the next 60 seconds.

Any thoughts? I'd be happy to provide you with an ARC if you'd like to read it and form your opinion that way, too.

Thanks so much in advance!
~ScH
 

NinjaFingers

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If the protagonist is 18 or younger AND the story in some way refers to their journey to adulthood, you can call it YA, but YA is not a genre.

It looks like this falls in the somewhat grey area between sci fi and technothriller, and which it is depends on how advanced your technology is. I'm leaning towards calling it a science fiction thriller given the floating city.
 

meowzbark

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1 -- Is your character under 18? If yes, then it belongs in MG or YA.

2 -- What is the setting? Is it in a futuristic world? Then sci-fi. Is it in completely different universe unlike ours? Then fantasy.

I wouldn't be too concerned about whether it's literary or thriller if it's set in any setting but a modern one.
 

Sonsofthepharaohs

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Like you, I'm working to build my own universe of books - I write the Flotilla Series and it's got some decent reviews but I want to build it into a robust universe of the size and scale of other series' like Hunger Games and Star Wars. To do that, I'm trying to do more research about who would enjoy this book so that I can talk to the right people.

I don't really understand the bolded part. Do you mean you want to expand the worldbuilding into something as complex and ambitious as these stories, or do you mean you want the marketing platform that these two have? Because if it's self published, you've already missed that boat - unless your sales are in the tens of thousands and some publisher thinks they can make a mint off the rest of the series.

Going the trade route when you're partially through a series isn't impossible, but your already published titles need to have done pretty well, either in sales or critical reception, to attract an agent/publisher for future titles in the series.
 

MythMonger

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If the city is able to float using modern technology (ie, it's actually a bunch of boats tied together) I wouldn't call it scifi.

If the city is using anti gravity technology or otherwise set in the future, then sure, it's scifi.
 

Brightdreamer

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If the city is able to float using modern technology (ie, it's actually a bunch of boats tied together) I wouldn't call it scifi.

If the city is using anti gravity technology or otherwise set in the future, then sure, it's scifi.

I don't know of any floating cities near Los Angeles, as described, so I'd think that would make it either alt-reality or near-future... both of which would fall under sci-fi, even without highly advanced speculative technology. Sci-fi with a touch of gritty dystopia.

As for pitching it... Star Wars and Hunger Games both have innumerable competitors in their same categories, all with decently-imagined universes. Both could've easily fallen by the wayside. Something about the story and the characters spoke to the public, though, and they took off into the phenomena they are now. It's not just about the setting - give the people good characters in a gripping story. Pitch that. This is what people will come for... and what they'll keep coming back to get, if they know you can provide it. Right now, I'm not getting a great sense of your MC as a person, or how his particular struggle is different from that of numerous other MCs in numerous other YA specfic worlds. Yeah, yeah, another likely-orphaned young man with his kid sister struggling to survive in the mean, drug-filled, corrupt streets of Futuretown... what's different about him? What can he do? What story does he end up in - is his story like that of like Luke or Katniss, in that he becomes part of a revolution to make the whole world a better place and end a global/galactic evil, or are the stakes strictly personal, securing a stable future for himself and his sister while eliminating enemies on a more local scale? (The personal story can still be interesting, if you make the characters and their situation interesting enough to keep a person reading.) And I'd also reconsider your timing and stakes at the end, or at least the phrasing: it's hard to write a whole book about "the next 60 seconds."

On some level, though, luck is involved, as well as timing. Right now, is there a need that can be filled by your series?
 

StreetCalledHaight

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I'm back and ready to respond to each of you - thank you so much for participating!

I don't really understand the bolded part. Do you mean you want to expand the worldbuilding into something as complex and ambitious as these stories

Yes, correct. This universe has the depth and ability to span the entire world of the future, so yes I'd like to see it become as robust and rich as the universes of SW and HG. My evil plan is to create the Original Universe and then work with fans to have a crowdsourced expanded universe that works along with the OG and maintains its continuity, so that the EU doesn't get arbitrarily killed after it spends 20 years keeping the fans entertained (I'm looking at you, Disney).

Going the trade route when you're partially through a series isn't impossible, but your already published titles need to have done pretty well, either in sales or critical reception, to attract an agent/publisher for future titles in the series.

Oh, I agree - my hope is to get a deal going with an agent for this new project I'm working on: a technothriller that ties all of the elements of the universe together and explains why the world fell apart. Any success of that book will (hopefully) draw people to the original series.

If the city is able to float using modern technology (ie, it's actually a bunch of boats tied together) I wouldn't call it scifi.

I hear you - obviously the boats being together in a community isn't sci-fi but I'm wondering if the almalgamation of community, current technology repurposed in a new format (these guys are living in a Firefly-esque way out on the Ocean) doesn't make it sci-fi in and of itself. Should I call it 'alternate reality' then?

1 -- Is your character under 18? If yes, then it belongs in MG or YA.

2 -- What is the setting? Is it in a futuristic world? Then sci-fi. Is it in completely different universe unlike ours? Then fantasy.

I wouldn't be too concerned about whether it's literary or thriller if it's set in any setting but a modern one.

1. Yes, Jim the MC is 15 so yeah, MG or YA. 2. Futuristic world, yes ... so Sci-fi. 3. Got it, got it and got it. Thanks! :D

It looks like this falls in the somewhat grey area between sci fi and technothriller, and which it is depends on how advanced your technology is. I'm leaning towards calling it a science fiction thriller given the floating city.

Okay - so Sci-fi Thriller, got it. I hear what you're saying about YA but ... what category do I put this in Amazon, then?

Tons of Great Ideas

I love what you said - thank you so much - may I purloin a few of those phrases for the site when I tune it? Loving what you're saying especially about 'sci-fi with a touch of gritty dystopia' that really seems to capture it.

I am interested by what you asked here:

On some level, though, luck is involved, as well as timing. Right now, is there a need that can be filled by your series?[/b]

I'd like to answer this - can you help me understand better what you're saying?

Thank you all for your help - as a token of my esteem, I'd be happy to shoot you an ARC of the book in question. Feel free to PM me an email address and I'll send it over.
 
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Brightdreamer

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I'd like to answer this - can you help me understand better what you're saying?

Sometimes, it just seems that the right story comes along to fill the right need at the right time. It's the lightning-in-a-bottle synergy that's hard to predict, but when it hits, it hits hard and fast and burns an indelible image in the collective retina of society. Generally, it seems to happen when there's a hole that nobody noticed needed filling until someone manages to fill it. Did anyone think there was such a huge need for a book about a boy wizard in modern-day London? There have been other books about magic hiding in modern life. There have been other books about orphans finding their birthright and acceptance. The first book itself, on its own, isn't particularly special - it's fun, yeah, but kind of silly at times, and the logic of the magic is all over the map. And yet, it works - and not only does it work, it works in a way that spoke to a huge audience, including people who didn't realize they even wanted to read about a boy wizard. People were hungry for a story like that. Would Harry Potter have been such a huge phenomenon ten or twenty years earlier? Was there a need for that particular story then? Or was it a peculiar alignment of culture and timing and, yes, a dash of luck that put Rowling in the right place and the right time with the right tale to spark not only a successful book sale, but a veritable phenomenon? (I'm not discounting the value of writing skill or hard work or raw persistence - but, when it comes to selling, factors beyond your control come into play. Sometimes, there just is or isn't an opening.)

Does your story offer something just a little different from other YA sci-fi thrillers? Do you have a character that speaks to people, here and now, in a way others don't, or a world that takes them somewhere refreshing or a little unexpected? Is there a hole on the shelves now that your story can fill? How can you make people hungry for your book?
 

StreetCalledHaight

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Does your story offer something just a little different from other YA sci-fi thrillers? Do you have a character that speaks to people, here and now, in a way others don't, or a world that takes them somewhere refreshing or a little unexpected? Is there a hole on the shelves now that your story can fill? How can you make people hungry for your book?

Oh totally - let me tell you why:

The Flotilla Series deals with young people becoming heroes of their own life in a very direct and personal way. Not in a dystopian society, not in a Battle Royale, but in solving the real problems that would come up if the lights of society were turned off. Parents and older folks tell me that they really respected the authentic way I talk about the real mental chaos you go through as a teen in trouble.

The settings of the story are rich enough that I regularly get asked if floating cities really exist like the one I depict. I have to keep reminding them that no, they don't exist - you would have heard about it if they did. I do talk about real places on the California coast - people really enjoy the fact that you can visit the coordinates of the MC's journey on Google Earth.

So to address what you say - yes, this is a story that speaks in a fresh and authentic way - I will totally take the Pepsi challenge if you want to prove me wrong.

Thank you again for your feedback - I really believe in the story and my readers do, too.
 
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