There is no better proof that too few people are writing comedic books than the fact that my book belongs to no available category on any website that demands genre classification.
When you explore the comedy category of Amazon, you delve into the low-brow end of the comedic spectrum. It is a corner of the market where jokes about burps are right at home.
It is not a place for my book.
For the past day or two, the top paid advertisement on An Aspiration To Lie Flat’s Amazon listing has been for a book entitled A Comprehensive History of the American Lawyer’s Positive Impact on Society, in which every page is blank.
How droll.
I’m trying not to feel hurt that Amazon thinks readers considering An Aspiration To Lie Flat might prefer a book with blank pages.
I can’t lie, though. It stings.
The only time the word ‘comedy’ appears in an available category on any literary website is within the term ‘romantic comedy’ (which we’ve established I don’t write.)
So my book winds up in ‘literature.’
Right.
My book and The Kite Runner.
Same category.
I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t track. There needs to be a specialty category for lighthearted, comedic stories about adults.
But that won’t happen until such stories exist in greater numbers, and that won’t happen until there is a market for them to incentivize writers.
So, we are stuck waiting for a market to form for books that do not exist.
It all sounds incredibly promising.
Stanton Fenwick 