Maybe I've Been Looking At This All Wrong

Failing authors like me tend to rationalize. I don't know how many times I've looked at lists of the best selling genres, hoping the rankings will change, but they never do. Oh, the order changes somewhat, but the usual cast of characters remains: romance, romantasy (hate that term), fantasy, thrillers, sci-fi... 

Women's fiction doesn't even make the list! Except for Google AI, which claims that it falls into the #3 slot, behind romance and mystery/thriller/suspense. Source, please. If I dig deeper, what I find, more importantly, are the popular women's fiction sub-trends. Ahh! That's more like it! AI says that upmarket satire and complex morality, grounded speculative and magical realism, "cozy" women's fiction, and dark revenge fantasy comprise the top four.  

My writer's mind doesn't travel in any of those directions. What is "complex" morality? Does "cozy" have an actual plot or is it just women sitting around knitting? Dark revenge? I don't even have dark revenge fantasies about people who deserve it.

From the barely conscious knowledge I've gleaned from the best seller buzz is that WWII women's fiction seems to be huge. Kristin Hannah springs to mind. 

So, no, "my" women's fiction doesn't rank.

However...

Maybe there's something to be said for scarcity. Maybe my novel's tagline should be "a story you won't read anywhere else". Kidding. Everybody wants what everybody else is reading. Still, I value my uniqueness. 

Someone asked authors on X: 

"If you were offered a huge movie or TV show adaptation of your work, how much altercation (sic) would you allow? Would you let them change your MC's gender? Their background? Maybe the story is re-framed so they're the villain? Do you have a line to cross?"

Most replied, "You bet! If the money's good enough." 

As a Poor™, I probably should have thought it through, but I responded, "I'm pretty protective of my work." Maybe the fact that I'm dumb is directly related to me being a Poor™.

Anyway, I've been wondering ever since my novel was chosen by eReader News Today for a Book of the Day slot, did my story being different help my chances? Something had to have helped. It couldn't simply have been my beautiful book cover, right?

For that theory to be correct, though, I should have sold many, many more copies than I have (still sitting at 48, thank you), which is why my BoTD selection is an ego boost to be sure, but will really have little-to-no effect on my book sales. (Hey, can I at least use it for website fodder? I could make it sound unbelievably cool. 😛 "Only 365 authors are awarded the Book of the Day crown!"...per year)

The honor will cost me $60.00, just as my Storygraph giveaway cost $60.00, but we're almost seven full months into the year and this is the only real money I've spent on marketing. If I can't afford to lose $120.00 in a year, I truly need to hang it up. If I still visited casinos, I'd lose that in about five minutes.

On the topic of women's fiction, I popped the term into Amazon's search and the first result was a 12-book series on Nashville. Turns out, though, that not only is the listing a sponsored ad, but the books are romance. Stop lumping romance in with women's fiction! So demoralizing. And this trade-published author's book previews show nothing of her writing style--it's all book hype, reviews, mailing list appeals. Show your work! Other than her, I couldn't find any actual women's fiction storylines that mirror mine. Thus, I'm going to cling to my "unique" label. 

My alias will now be The Unique Author. Granted, that's not always a compliment, but it's all I got.