Labeling

About ten years ago, I was shopping around a proposal for a novel about Benjamin Franklin.   Though the friends who read the initial chapters loved them, and one went as far as to say it was the best thing I’ve ever done, the proposal never sold, in part because editors were puzzled by it.  There didn’t seem to be a category to which the book belonged.

It wasn’t fantasy, it wasn’t science fiction, it wasn’t a thriller, it wasn’t a mystery, and it wasn’t straight historical fiction, though it had elements of all of these.

If the editors couldn’t categorize it, they didn’t want it, and they didn’t buy it.

Talking with Kathy the other day, I realized what category the book fits into.  It’s steampunk!

Dang.  Ahead of my time again.

Maybe now that it has a category, I can sell it.   How about that?