Monday 23 February 2009

Commercial fiction


Still wondering about the publishing world I discover a phrase agents and publishers often use ~ commercial fiction.
From my reading and asking colleagues I have gathered that anything under this heading is aimed at the mass market. It includes romance and historical, and sub genres such as sagas, supernatural, timeslip, fanfic, lit-lite, historical crime and male oriented battle historicals of the type written by Bernard Cornwell.
Poor old category historical romance a la Mills & Boon/Harlequin is not included.
I know that fan-fic refers to the modern follow-ons to Jane Austen's novels. My question is ~ How does lit-light differ from category fiction?

1 comment:

Linda Banche said...

I found this article on what the author considers "lit lite"

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/it-aint-heavy-its-my-book-club-524237.html

According to the author lit lite is "a ripping yarn with lots of meaty issues to discuss."

I don't think category romance would fit that definition. I like category romances, too. Most are good reads, but they don't discuss "meaty issues".

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