What Readers Said . . .
after reading my visionary fiction novel, “The Immortal Life of Piu Piu”:
YES!
I love the way this woman writes! Very descriptive and one of the most unique stories I have ever read.
~ By Karen Moore – 5 Star Review published on Amazon.com on 27 April 2017
Short and sweet and it made my day! I love receiving positive feedback from readers I don’t know!
Spirituality and Inspiration
Sometimes it’s not easy for an author to decide on a category when publishing his or her fiction novel. It’s much easier for those who are writing non-fiction books. Normally, they know right from the start what their specific genre is. The genre is the category under which a title appears say on Amazon – or any other online platform that sells books. And these are growing rapidly . . . no wonder, with so many books being published day after day! In the offline scenario, say in a physical store, it’s the shelf where one would be looking for a book to read. Also think of libraries: where are books catalogued? So, in case you’ve written a recipe book, it’s easy to find it. If your 12-year old kid wants an educational textbook on geography, you know where to look.
It’s not always that easy when we think about literature and fiction. If you are an author and you have written a science fiction story or a thriller – you don’t need to think much. You may want to define it a little more, say as a space opera or a mystery thriller, but these attributes only classify within the main genres, and it is very clear what these are: science fiction and thriller. Bearing that in mind, you’d have no problem to find your favourite Harry Potter or Alice in Wonderland. However, especially in the beginning as I hear from many fellow authors – the lines between genres are not that easy to spot and even shifting. Everything moves and changes and new genres and categories pop up all the time. The libraries follow so-called BISAC codes and while Amazon follows that a bit… it’s not a real discipline for them as the follow more what the market dictates.
All this doesn’t make things easier!
If you’ve written a fiction novel that entertains, informs and teaches without being a typical ‘how-to’ book that would belong into the non-fiction category, you may have difficulties in finding your perfect ‘niche’ – not to speak of the overwhelming weight of competing writers, which can be a scary thing! Even if you know your target market, your audience and readers, you still have to choose wisely in order to be ‘searchable’ or rather ‘findable’ for everyone searching for your book or books in your genre. My choice wasn’t easy in that sense, either . . . and while my magical realism novel, “The Immortal Life of Piu Piu” dives into the mystery of life and death and everything inbetween, with its main female protagonist, Anata, moving along a path of spiritual awakening, personal development and transformation, the writing itself contains many elements of ‘magical realism’ – and that’s the genre it went in. In the beginning . . . but it won’t stay there. writing a book and getting it out there in the world is a steep learning curve and when I realized that all my work – be it in the Fine Arts or Screenplay Writing and now including my fiction novel – has these exact elements, I knew I had to change. It happens to many; we change until everything just gels. For me there’s always a magical side to our real life, and I don’t really bother where to draw the lines, bearing in mind that everything is an illusion anyway. It’s the way I see – and have always seen – our temporary existence here on Earth, as a spiritual being in physical form. I wrote about this in my article during the Magical Realism Bloghop less than a year ago:
“I cannot imagine a reality without magic.” ~ Bianca Gubalke
In the meantime, there’s a surprise for you on the way! I had to reformat my book to get the page count down – which inflated the price of the book as soon as it was sold beyond the Amazon platform – and I will soon publish the second edition. This gave me the opportunity to target more precise . . . So watch this space and I’m looking forward to your valued feedback!
#spirituality #biancagubalkeauthor #mysteryfiction
Bianca Gubalke 