Did you know that Paranormal Romance is not a genre? Nope, neither is Supernatural Horror. No, afraid not. Those are sub-genres or format. Here are your main genres: fiction and non-fiction.
Let’s break FICTION up a bit:
Realism: historical, realistic, modern, and contemporary.
Fantasy: Modern, traditional
And now let’s break up NON-FICTION:
Autobiographies, memoirs, biographies, infographics.
Here is an example of a genre and format: Contemporary Fiction – Paranormal Young Adult
Did you also know that libraries categorize their books by grouping them in their respective genres? I did, but not to the extent of really being mindful of it. While I believe it is useful to categorize libraries so that readers can easily find the type of books they enjoy, if you put Twilight with Romance (a format) instead of under Fantasy, you risk losing readers who would otherwise never look under the romance section. Same goes with a “Hunger Games” book. If you put it under Science Fiction and not under Action, you risk losing readers who do not like science fiction.
Personally, I would have the larger genres, but I am not fond of categorizing them by sub-genre or format. I want to make sure that young kids find a variety of books that they can explore and grow to love. However, I am on the side of having one or two showcase sections of a popular author and his/her entire works with an infographic, etc.
Would you classify libraries by genre? What are your thoughts?
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