I am close to completing the first draft of my first novel, and my task for 2015 is to start approaching agents. I want to be able to sell a polished package- and that seems to involve knowing what genre you're selling, and to whom.
I'm stuck on genre. It's not that I don't know what my book IS- I can picture exactly who and what I am aiming for. I just don't know how to label it.
In terms of what I am striving for, think authors such as Nick Hornby, David Nicholls or Tony Parsons. The novel is about relationships, growing up and parenthood, and speaks to the struggles and emotion of the everyday, with a central human story about a particular character. It's set in the modern day. I'm aiming for a style with humour and feeling (laughter and the odd tear), accessible but good quality. I guess it's a 'holiday read'- but one which you'd be happy to discuss at a dinner party, rather than one you'd hide between the pages of a weightier tome on the beach. And I would imagine the main readership would be women- but their blokes might borrow it afterwards.
With all that in mind, can anybody help me identify the correct name for the genre this might fall into? I've read up about the various genre but still can't get my head around them.
It's not 'chick lit'- I don't think? I wouldn't put, for example, 'One Day' into that category (God I'd love to write a book as good as that....). And I don't feel I could call it 'literary' (feels so grand!) but then 'commercial' conjures up images of windswept historical beauties on series of books about sexy-tragic potato farming orphans.... Perhaps 'literary-commercial crossover'? Or 'women's fiction'? HALP!