Literary Fiction, Humour, Drama, Adventure, Fantasy, Science Fantasy, Science Fiction, Romance, Erotica, Mystery, Thriller, Horror, Paranormal…the list of genres is large and growing.  Niche genres have evolved to include Steampunk Scifi, Christian Romance, Crime Dramas, Crime Thrillers, and even books based on specific video games.

Moreover, many books cross multiple genres to include a bit of fantasy and science fiction and romance and adventure and mystery.

Gone are the days when books could be easily classified into a handful of categories.

For authors who aim their writing at a target audience, this may be a godsend enabling them to tailor their stories to a very small niche, making keyword generation easy and almost guaranteeing readership.  Cross-genre novels allow for greater quantity and variety of keywords, but some readers may be disappointed if the tale does not fit what they were looking for.  And titles in less popular genres now get short shrift because the algorithms that put books in front of buyers may shunt them to the back of the line.

While those who limit themselves to a narrow type of reading material may be well served by the ease of finding books they will enjoy, and while the sheer number of genres lends itself to a dazzling array of offerings for those who hop from one genre to another, things have gotten rather complicated for authors and designers and book marketers.

Do you think the proliferation of genre categories is beneficial? Do you seek out niche genres?