A Section For Romance

Posted by Kimber Chin in Contemporary Romance, Kimber Chin

4 comments

I recently attended a workshop where the presenter talked about genre merging. He said that sections in bookstores no longer make sense because so many stories are a mix of genres. A mystery story will include some romance. A romance novel has a horror aspect. I’ve even read romance novels with recipes in them. This makes the decision of where to place a book difficult. Some bookstores have solved this by not having sections.

I hate these bookstores. Seriously. I have to be very desperate to shop there.

Why? Because I’m purely a romance reader. I don’t care if my romance has zombies or aliens or a description on pet care, as long as the book has a happy ending. I don’t want to search through stacks of not-so-happy ending books to find these stories. I’d rather spend that time reading the books I’ve purchased.

Some romance author buddies are fans of the no-section bookstores. They believe that romance will get more respect if shelved next to literary works. They feel if their books are not segregated, they’ll be treated equally by critics.

Another buddy is a sci-fi romance reader. She has little sympathy for me as she always has to search for her books. They are sometimes in sci-fi, sometimes in romance, sometimes in general fiction, or yikes (considering the adult stuff she reads) sometimes in YA. In the section-free bookstores, she simply searches by her favourite authors.

What is your preference? Do you like sections in bookstores or do you like one big happy section?

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Kimber Chin writes contemporary romances set in the sexy world of business. Her latest novel, Flawless, is the love story of a killer. To read more about Kimber Chin’s novels, please visit http://businessromance.com/