In New Zealand you know before you walk into it, what sort of books you will find in a Paper Plus, Take Note, Warehouse or Whitcoulls store, namely, downmarket books for the lowest common denominator In other countries the same applies.
Opinion from Richard Glover of the Sydney Morning Herald, webpage :
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Well, it's not good enough to just write a book; these days publishers will only consider something if it fits into an already successful genre.
The tendency began with the genre called "chick lit", which was invented in June 1995, when writer Helen Fielding noticed that her underpants were quite large. The effect was so startling in terms of book sales, the industry committed itself to only publishing chick lit, or books from genres that at least sounded like "chick lit".
Just choose the genre that best suits your style of writing and the invitation to the free drinks won't be long coming.
Quick lit
Modern printing techniques now allow the production of news-related books within minutes of an event occurring. Only a fortnight ago, when Osama bin Laden's body was still sinking, scores of publishers were already pressing the "print" button. Of course, a book that has taken less than three hours to write may lack a little in the quality department, but you'll be wowed by the speed. Personally, I'm now busy working on some follow-up books: The Navy Seal Diet Plan; The Navy Seal Exercise Plan; The Navy Seal Cook Book; and Osama's Big Book of Porn. I'm planning on publishing tomorrow; what about you?
Click lit
This is a genre featuring books about the Internet, all of them claiming the Internet is about to kill off the publishing industry. It's a curious fact that the publishing industry would have died years ago were it not for the publication of thousands of books on the topic of how books are about to die.
Sick lit
Crime books about ghastly murders, paedophilic if possible, in which whole chapters are dedicated to describing the crime, the state of the decaying body and grisly process of the autopsy. No way is this sick and prurient; it's just that the central character happens to be a police pathologist and the author wants to be accurate.
Dick lit
Airport thrillers written for a male audience in which commandos, submarine officers or undercover spies save the day through acts of swaggering derring-do. Crucially, something has to explode, sink or crash in the course of every page or, if possible, sentence.
Flick lit
Any coffee-table book with lots of pictures and hardly any text, designed for people to flick through so they can feel cultured without having to actually expend any mental effort.
Shtick lit
Books written by comedians in which they work-in their best lines, preferably while having a top-rating comedy on TV. Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Cosby have each had their years in the sun; Tina Fey is the current champion.
Sit lit
This is the sort of volume perfect for reading when sitting on the toilet. My own book, The Dag's Dictionary, has made a modest contribution to the genre, yet is nothing to match Jeremy Clarkson, who remains the world's leading provider of sit lit, with a series of books featuring 950-word reviews of motor cars. Propped atop the toilet and aimed at the 50-something male, a single Clarkson volume effectively creates a patriarchal cistern.
Tick lit
Any book that promises to give you a tick of approval for the views you already hold. Whole sections of the bookstore now consist of books for atheists that argue the case for atheism. This is a big shift from five years ago, in which whole walls were covered in books about how George Bush was an idiot, expressly designed for people who thought George Bush was an idiot. The trick is to work out someone's opinion and then explain it back to them over the course of 500 pages.
Kick lit
Any sports book that claims to have been written by the sportsman himself, but was, in fact, written by a grizzled ghost writer who spent five weeks recording conversations with said footballer in order to try to chance on a single coherent sentence.
Thick lit
Fantasy novels which, for reasons I've never understood, always have to be 600 pages long and part of a series of 10 books with a pompous title like The Agamemnon Chronicles. Most book stores can only now carry the work of about three authors, since just one series involves 10 metres of shelving. As Mark Twain once said of a similarly hefty book, once you put it down, you can't pick it up.
Fitz lit
Any book by Peter FitzSimons [Australian sports commentator] each of which sells 10 times more copies than any of my books, leading to a lifetime of bitterness, anger and a tendency to sneak into bookshops and place a single copy of my own dog-eared title on top of the stack of his.
And, finally:
Brick lit
The only category that has now been removed from the Australian Publishers Association approved list. Alas, my own book about building a mudbrick house in the bush was so spectacularly unsuccessful, the whole genre has now been deregistered. So good luck. You'll need it.
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