If you like [Title], you should try...

[hrj]

I wasn't sure I was going to fit in a Random Thursday blog today, but it turns out I have a spare hour or two in the endodontist's waiting room before they can fit in my emergency root canal. (Well, not "emergency" but definitely not something that had been on the schedule when I woke up.)

One of the tricky things to do when promoting a book is to identify "similar products". You know, as in, "If you liked Title you'll love My-Title." Actually identifying similar books isn't so much the hard part. Figuring out how to say it in a way that doesn't sound annoyingly self-important or presumptuous is harder. But hardest is figuring out what it is that readers might like about Other-Author's-Title and whether your book shares those specific features, as opposed to features that the reader considers incidental.

For example, Naomi Novik's Temeraire series shares a great many themes with C. S. Forester's Hornblower series, and the two make a great "If you like X try Y" pairing. But if one has very strong feelings about fantasy elements (pro or con) then the recommendation may not work. Similarly, if someone concluded on the basis of my fondness for Lois McMasters Bujold's Vorkosigan series that I'm a natural market for mil-sci-fi in general, they would have missed the essential fact that I love the books in spite of their military themes, not because of them.

In the realm of romance fiction (even more so in erotica, but I'm going to leave that aside), the ways in which a reader identifies with the characters, their desires, and the particular gaze used by the author often overwhelm the reader's preference for particular settings, themes, and plots. And this is where I have the most difficulty in positioning Daughter of Mystery relative to the books with which I, personally, feel it might share a natural readership.

For example, in terms of setting, themes, and overall plot shape, I'd say that the best current comparison would be with Mary Robinette Kowal's Glamourist series. (Regency-era setting, check. Fairly subtle/light magic as social and political tool, check. Romance as continuing theme but not sole plot, check. Well-intentioned people and generally positive outcomes rather than "gritty/dark", check. Strong female characters, check.) And if reviewers and sff taste-makers started promoting the Alpennian books to Glamourist fans, I'd be over the moon. (Conversely, I'd strongly recommend that anyone who liked Daughter of Mystery and hadn't read Kowal yet should definitely try her work!) But there's the one minor caveat that, given that both series have romance as a significant theme, a reader who strongly prefers to read about romances where the gender roles match their own preferences may consider such a recommendation misleading.

Another parallel I'd be overjoyed to see readers and reviewers making is to Ellen Kushner's Riverside stories, and particularly to The Privilege of the Sword. (I've made no particular secret of the fact that reading TPOTS was one of the final straws that drove me to write DoM, to fill the places where it still left me hungry.) But when you look at what Riverside fans get most excited about, it's the relationship between the male characters. And despite all the other thematic parallels with DoM, it's quite likely that those readers wouldn't make the same emotional connection with Margerit and Barbara. For how many people would a "If you liked X, try Y" recommendation here be successful? I don't know.

And the one thing I do know is that I, as an author, can't make those connections and recommendations and be taken seriously. Because people (quite reasonably) don't credit what an author says about their own books. But you can. What readerships do you think would be a natural for the Alpennian stories?

Comments

[ursula]

I'd definitely rec your book to anyone who was annoyed by the heroine's whining about learning to use a sword in Privilege of the Sword. Probably the closest recent match is Death by Silver by Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold. Really, though, your book reminds me of an older cluster of books including Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer's Sorcery for Cecilia, Martha Wells' Death of a Necromancer, and the less-grim books by Paula Volsky.

(The converse Kowal recommendation fails for me, but you knew that.)

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was thinking in terms of books that I've seen people talking about fairly recently. The Wrede/Stevermer books are another similar "feel". I love many of Scott's series, but I do wish she'd write female characters more often! (Which gets back to the question of which resonances map in parallel.)

[lferion]

Hmm. That's an interesting puzzle. For me, Caroline Stevermer's College of Magic duo resonates, and what I remember of Prisoner of Zenda (it has been years and years since I read it, but it popped into my mind when thinking about this.)

Another thing that resonates to a point is the Lord John Grey series/stories by Diana Gabaldon. (Not, I hasten to add, the Outlander books proper, with which I have many-several bones to pick). The period feel, the queer aspects, the very subtle fantasy/magical/more-than-ordinary elements.

One of my personal favourites of the romance genre is "Lady Elizabeth's Comet" by Sheila Simonson, which has the period, the academic/science, and the outsider elements, though not the magic or the queer.

I keep meaning to take a look at the Glamourist books, but haven't done so yet.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

The Gabaldon rec makes one of my key points. When character gender comes into the mix, it can be hard to predict whether the other resonances would be sufficient to carry the recommendation. I, personally, feel no interest at all in the Lord John stories, precisely because of gender-identification issues. So it makes me question how well the recommendation would work in the opposite direction. I'm well aware that there's a large readership of m/m fiction that would have no interest at all in f/f stories that were otherwise identical.

[xrian.livejournal.com]

Agree heartily on the Stevermer books.

[irinarempt.pip.verisignlabs.com (from livejournal.com)]

I actually mentioned Riverside in my review, though obliquely: "It might be set in the same universe as Swordspoint, with the notable difference that a lot of people are a good deal less nasty." It's not the love relationships that I get excited about in the Riverside books, but the environment, the setting. Frankly, Richard annoys me and I can't stand Alec, but I like Swordspoint in spite of them. Speaking of love, I don't care whether fictional lovers are men or women or one of each, as long as I like both of them and they get together in the end. Margerit and Barbara fit that bill admirably.

In general, I'm a sucker for happy endings but dislike romance as a genre; I love Sorcery and Cecelia (and generally all things Stevermer) though Heyer does nothing for me; and I like Temeraire and tolerate Hornblower, making me think that $OTHER_GENRE-with-fantasy is what fits me best. Also, not grim; I don't believe for a moment that more negative equals more realistic. Anyway, I'm not convinced that more realistic is better.

I can imagine that romance readers might think there's not enough romance in DoM, and fantasy readers might be disappointed by the subtlety of the fantasy; the audience for it is probably readers like me (and you, and as far as I can see the other commenters) who don't choose genre-first but character-first.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

So, in other words, you're a prime example of my dilemma!

[hairmonger.livejournal.com]

I can't be helpful, because my taste in setting, theme, and plot, and also characters, is too broad for ITTT recommendations. Also, being bi, my gender preferences are always met. And besides, I've never felt a need for characters to be like me to identify with (SFF! Alien POV! etc.) I do agree with everyone above.

Mary Anne in Kentucky

[irinarempt.pip.verisignlabs.com (from livejournal.com)]

Also, being bi, my gender preferences are always met.

Well, yes :-)

I don't think I need a character to identify with, but I have a hard time getting into a book if there isn't anyone I like. Case in point: much of Agatha Christie.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

"Also, being bi, my gender preferences are always met."

One of the most regular failures when people recommend books to me is when they haven't realized that the lack of female protagonists means something different for me than it does for them. This is why I fret over the converse: the difficulty in predicting which readers will find the omnipresence of female protagonists a fault.

[hairmonger.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I don't even notice the absence of human characters. Example: Kjelgaard's Outlaw Red. When I read it as a child, I really didn't notice there were no humans except at the very beginning and end. I was completely absorbed in the dog's POV. I can't begin to guess what people would find omnipresent female protagonists a fault. Knew I'd be no help at this.

[hairmonger.livejournal.com]

Oh, indeed. I don't think I have re-read a Poirot in decades.
No, I've never understood the need to identify with a character to find the book interesting; the characters being interesting is enough. I have, though, found myself identifying with characters not only not-female, but not-human. (The dragon in the first of Barbara Hambly's Jenny Waynest books. Clearly it has been too long since I read it, since I can't remember the title.)

[scotica.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to be much help with this, either. I love historical romance (especially regency), so that is a lot of what I love about DoM. "If you like Heyer, you should try DoM" would be a good recommendation for me, but then I relate to lesbian romance as much as to heterosexual romance, and if the book were as good as DoM I'd probably not care if the romantic couple were gay men, either.

I think one of the aspects that I really appreciate is the excellent writing with the characters being authentic _historical_ characters, with flaws but basically good (in a general moral sense), in an authentic historical world. (I originally wrote "realistic" rather than "authentic", but I think "authentic" conveys a better sense of the feeling.) So another "If you like" that would work for me is "If you like Carla Kelly, even her non-Regency novels, you should try DoM".

Carla Kelly is a historical romance writer who's older Regencies are so beloved they sell for more than their cover price, but in recent years she's shifted to writing later 19th and early 20th century American set novels with very Mormon protagonists. Some of her fans don't like the Mormon books, but for others of us, what we love about her books isn't that we are just like the protagonists. Also, as with DoM, her stories aren't just about the romance -- they're about authentic people in an interesting, authentic historical setting, not modern people and plots in costume. But clearly for some people, loving Carla Kelly Regencies doesn't even translate to loving Carla Kelly Mormon stories, never mind liking a Regency by another author with similar qualities that also has magic and lesbians.

Maybe it is the formula that needs a little tweaking? If you love X, and would want to read a book by them even if it included Y and Z, you should try DoM...

[hairmonger.livejournal.com]

Authentic, yes! As a non-historian who has absorbed vast swaths of primary source material (22 volumes of Byron's letters is the least of it) I am so often thrown out of period novels saying "But they'd never say that." DoM never does that to me.

I think the formula needs more than X to produce useful results. When Amazon or Netflix tries to offer me things I might like, and I've read both the If and the Then, I so often say "But they're nothing alike!"

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

Funnily enough, over spring and summer I was enthusiastically recommending both DoM and the Glamourist books in the same breath. (Particularly to my mom, who works in a library...)