Hitting Your Niche Target
In my last post I talked about the emerging trend of cozy mysteries to include information on crafts, like scrapbooking or sewing or even recipes for baking lovers.
This is a style of double marketing. You have the consumer base that like cozy mysteries (like the good ol' Agatha Christie stories) but you also have a focused niche base (people who love baking cookies and reading mysteries). This got me to thinking about other genres that could interweave non-fiction material through their books. This is what I could come up with:
Eucalyptus by Murray Bail - This Australian novel was a literary romance filled with sweet fairy tales but also included intermittent sections about Australian Gum trees in a non-fiction style. I enjoyed the stories but found myself skimming the botanics, whereas my husband loved this book. His interests are primarily in Australian ecosystems - so, big Gum Tree lover. There was talk of a movie being made including Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman, but that seemed to fizzle out.
John Grisham included a lot of legal information in his thrillers, but I'm not sure if that was to appeal to some law fanatics that love hearing about official paperwork filing for courts or if he just drew on his own legal experience.
In my response to Botanist from Views From the Bald Patch, I mentioned another example could be a YA fantasy series about witches that included simple spells you could try at home. Teen girls would LOVE that.
Or... children's picture books about the environment, each one could include ways to help and a story, for example one could be about kids keeping frogs, and it could include instructions on building a pond and raising tadpoles.
This type of marketing appeals to the reader's desire to belong, by sharing an interest with the main character, the reader is part of a 'club'. It might not be a hobby or interest that the reader actually takes part in, but one they would like to take part in, or perhaps they just like the idea of trying the hobby.
Certain interests would suit particular genres. I think the cooking recipes work better in cozy mysteries than they would in a thriller, although Silence of the Lambs would take on a whole new macabre style if recipes were included.
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