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Has anyone ever wondered why some publishers use one taxonomy to place books into categories like Urban Fantasy or Paranormal Romance but online book retailers do not use the same lexicon? For example, big six publisher, Simon and Schuster on their Pocket after Dark site helpfully uses Urban Fantasy. Now look at Amazon or B & N. Do you see Urban Fantasy? Random House offers a listing for Fiction & Literature/Fantasy Genre with Urban Life and Paranormal as two of many sub-genres.
I imagine it's a question of semantics. But, my preference is that things are called what I think they should be called. That's kind of like thinking that people in all countries should speak English, but it would make buying books easier for me.
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Avon Romance a Harper Collins Imprint divides up their category into sub-genres, one of which is Paranormal. They also have a Time Travel heading. But Harper Collins uses Fantasy categories that don't include Urban just General and Contemporary.
There are people who believe that the categories are quite set and well defined with minimal cross over. I have read posts about this but cannot point to one. I don't think I believe that simply because I don't see it being identified consistently through out the industry. As soon as it were to be "absolute" it would be railed against, hated and denounced, or, somoeone would invent a new genre that just didn't fit into the definitions, like Insect Characters Mystery Thrillers. That will be a new one!
