Do you think there is a market for LDS chick lit? Do you think that labelling a manuscript as chick lit in a query letter will help or hurt with a publisher?
P.S. Thanks for keeping this blog up, hornet nests aside. It's helpful.
Chick Lit: a genre of fiction targeted to, and written by or about, young and sophisticated urban women ( slang ) (Encarta)
Do we have young, sophisticated, urban LDS women who like to read?
Although chick lit, in general, is declining in the national market, I think there will always be a place for it. LDS trends tend to follow a bit behind the national market so we haven't seen much of it yet.
Also, true chick lit has a bit of a sassy or sardonic tone to it and there's not a lot of that in this market either.
You could pitch it as light, LDS chick lit, or just as women's fiction targeting young, fun and fresh young women readers.
An example of LDS "almost" chick lit is Stephanie Fowers. Readers, who else might fit this category?
9 comments:
E.M Tippetts has described her novel Time and Eternity as chick lit. I haven't read it yet so I don't know how good the descriptor is. Of course, the definition of "chick lit" is one that tends to be particularly amorphous and in contention.
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AMV interview with Tippetts
I would think young, sophisticated, urban LDS woman would be primarily cant toward angst about one's unmarried status and celibacy and all the pitfalls therein.
I was 34 when I got married. Young, sophisticated, urban, LDS, so I'm not sure that would be terribly productive or popular. There's not a whole lot you can do with Jimmy Choo.
However, I have been proven wrong...
Elodia Strain's The Icing On the Cake is a perfect example. I loved that book and I personally think there is a place for Chick Lit in the LDS market. I'm also a fan of Stephanie Fowers.
I think Crystal Liechty also fits (both her novel and her short stories).
I don't know that a publisher will lean one way or another if you call your book chick-lit. I called mine romance in my query letter because I didn't know any better. My chick-lit-aholic sister set me straight. (Main character is a 26 year old accountant in LA, and there's no one love story that lasts throughout, nor are there a lot of romantic scenes.)
Do we have young, sophisticated, urban LDS women who like to read? Oh definitely. Do they go to LDS bookstores to find reading material? I think, sadly, no. Not for the most part. That, if anything, is the real barrier to chick-lit in the LDS market.
The Library of Congress actually cataloged "Delicious Conversation" by Jennifer Stewart Griffith as Chick-lit.
Star Struck by Josi Kilpack and My-Not-So-Fairy-Tale Life by Julie Wright are both Chick Lit-ish to me. Also, Beyond Perfection by Juli Caldwell and Erin McBride. I enjoyed all the above mentioned novels as well. Stephanie Fowers is one of my favorites. She just makes me laugh and laugh.
I think Spare Change by Aubrey Mace would fit here. And Makeover by Shannon Guymon.
Yeah, I'd have to say there's a definite market for it, and it's only right that the LDS market start producing it as well. Some of the very bestsellers on the national market are chick lit, and the books mentioned above in the LDS market are all pretty good. My favorite in that bunch is Spare Change by Aubrey Mace.
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