I cannot stress this enough:

READ. IN. YOUR. GENRE.

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"My books hard to describe," the MFA student said. "It's not like anything else out there. It's [one of the most common plot lines in space opera]."

Me... and the problem is?

MFA: I have no comp titles and don't know how to market it?

Me... do you read SF?

MFA: I read Asimov.

You need to know your genre, and read in your genre, because genre is how readers find you.
If I order pizza and your serve pancakes and ketchup I'm not going to be pleased.

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Yes, a pancake with ketchup does have a round, bready bottom and red sauce on top, but it isn't pizza.
It might have a romantic subplot, but if it doesn't have Happily Ever After it isn't a genre Romance.

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It doesn't matter how great your book is if you are trying to sell it to the wrong audience.
Books are like sushi, you aim your marketing at the people who want to eat raw fish, not to the vegans.

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Your book can be an epic romance that's going to rival Jane Austen's masterpieces, but if you try to sell it as a fast-paced thriller you aren't going to see the sales you want.
You've got to be smart about marketing your book.

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Not sure what your genre is?
Start here!

http://www.lianabrooks.com/mondays-in-publishing-genre/

You do need to know what genre you're writing before you start marketing though, because each genre has a slightly different rhythm and tempo.

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One of the underlying editing problems some people miss is that they write a book meant for one genre but are using the structure of another genre.
This can work if you know what you're doing.

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A good example of cross-genre rhythms is Romantic Suspense... it's thriller pacing with suspense and romance beats and a happy ending.
It's a very engaging genre with broad crossover appeal.

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A bad example of cross-genre beats would be trying to write a political thriller with epic fantasy beats in the style of Jane Austen... it could be great but it probably wasn't intentional and now it's a mess.

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This is why authors who say they don't know their genre when they're ready to query or publish terrify me.
If you don't know your genre by the end of the first draft something has gone wrong.

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