Sub-Genre Poll Results

[Daniel Hatadi]

The world-infamous Sub-Genre Poll has now come to a close. Rather than setting a particular date for it, I let it run until the votes died down. The number of votes were so close to 100 that I decided to run them until they hit that value, making it dead easy to treat the data as percentages.

Police procedurals are the clear winner among those Crimespace members that took the time to click twice with their mouse and register a vote. With suspense coming in as a fairly close second, I was surprised to find that no one voted for erotica, seeing as there is so much romantic suspense out there, both in publishing, and in nightclubs and bars.

Cozies tied with hard-boiled which is bound to make for an exciting series of wrestling matches at the next convention. And although the P.I. genre was a late comer to the poll, 8% is a high enough value to prove that, no, the P.I. novel is not dead, but the blood pressure is kinda low.

With zero votes going to legal thrillers, it's clear that John Grisham's career is over unless he begs Stuart MacBride for a collaborative effort. Okay, so maybe he can write other stuff instead. Fine, then. Just be that way about it.

With serial killers and comedy tying somewhere near the bottom of the heap, I'd say it was a safe bet that combining the two could greatly increase market share. But Jeff Lindsay's already thought of that.

It looks like my summing up of the results is about as useful as Drew Carey on Whose Line Is It Anyway, so here's all the extremely scientificky data for you to pore over with your fancy slide rules and abacuses.

Thanks to everyone who voted.

Police procedural 18%
Suspense 12%
Cozy 10%
Hard-boiled 10%
Noir 9%
P.I. novel 8%
Historical 7%
Criminal novel 5%
Serial killer 4%
Thriller 4%
Quirky / Comedy 4%
Spy novel 3%
Whodunnit 2%
Literary 2%
Howdunnit 1%
Medical / forensic 1%
Legal thriller 0%
Erotic 0%

[Donna Moore]

Nice job Daniel! And if you combine noir and hardboiled you get 19% so for those of us who swithered between the two that's a nice result :o) As far as erotica, I don't enjoy a throbbing manhood unless it's actually in the same room as me :o) Good job I'm not expecting to be successful at this writing lark since comedy scores so low! I guess that's my erotic medical thriller featuring a stand-up comic lawyer with a liking for Camus is on the back burner for now. I was also going to throw in a serial killing cat. Hey ho.

[Karyn J. Powers]

If your stand-up lasts more than four hours, please see your doctor!

[carole gill]

It's early here. Just read your comment and I'm hysterical!

[I. J. Parker]

Wow! There were some votes for historical. I'm amazed. And gratified.

[Dana King]

I've read several historical mysteries over the past year or two, and they've routinely been excellent. I saw the thread elsewhere here about howthey're hard to sell, and I can only assume the twenty-somethings in the marketing department don;t know what to do with them.

[Sandra Ruttan]

Oh no, this was great Daniel. I love the recap, and thanks for doing this!

[carole gill]

Just perusing these results again, and I noticed Erotic crime fiction? goodness any examples?

[Daniel Hatadi]

I believe Maxim Jakubowski is one if its most respected practitioners.

[carole gill]

thanks Daniel. i was curious.