What are the similarities/differences between a cozy mystery and chick lit?

[Christine Duncan]

Are all sub genres just starting to blur? I write soft boiled/cozy and those lines have blurred but now in reviews I am starting to get people saying they think it is chick lit. And for the record, no there is no sex in these books. Not so much as a juicy kiss.

[Pepper Smith]

Sometimes that seems to be in the eye of the reviewer. Who's doing your reviews? They may be a bit confused themselves as to what chick lit is.

[Christine Duncan]

Bookbitch was the last review to say this. But I must need a definition of chick lit!

[I. J. Parker]

Someone in my writers group is writing chicklit. Her explanation of the genre deals with her audience: younger career or working women. The books tend to be very light and deal with sexual relations between young adults in a business world setting.

Cozies frequently appeal to older women and go easy on explicit or unmarried sex.

[Christine Duncan]

Thanks, I.J. That's what I thought chick lit was. My book fits more in the cozy sub-genre as you describe it too. But what I'm beginning to wonder if now people are starting to apply the label chick lit to anything that has to do with traditional women's issues--like family or domestic violence or even anything remotely feminine.

[I. J. Parker]

Family and domestic violence are, in my opinion, serious subjects that don't fit the stereotype of either chicklit or cozy. They do appeal to women readers, because they deal with women's issues. Both subjects are incredibly old and well-covered by now, so much so that they appear more like cliches than new explorations. The LIFE channel (I'm not altogether sure about the name) on television focuses heavily on women's issues via made-for-TV films that keep dealing with such subjects.
I should explain that I shy away from this sort of thing because I don't like that kind of separation of the genders. That doesn't mean that there isn't a large market for it.

[Patricia Gulley]

Chicklit is all about the protagonist and her clothes and makeup, with a goodly amount of her love life thrown in. A knowledge of major good labels is required. A mystery is neither here nor there.
A cozy demands a mystery and after the initial description of you protag, we really don't have to care what she/he wears or if she/he has a lovelife. The dead body requires no graphics or forensics.
That's my take on it, and I'm sticking to it.
I've heard chicklit is out, so avoid all reference to it in queries.
Patg

[Christine Duncan]

Thanks, Naomi and Patricia. Dead bodies I can do. I'm wondering now if all of this genre stuff is more in the eye of the writer/publisher/bookstore staff than in the eye of the reader.

[Patricia Gulley]

The eye of the beholder is becoming quite the discussion matter. Mysteries of all sort are blending together and crossing lines. Suspense and thiller are being added to all sorts of things. Romantic suspense, suspenseful cozy, traditional thriller, supenseful procedural etc etc!
Oh well.
Your discussion on e-books is very interesting. Mysteries don't seem to do well there, I'm told.
Patg

[I. J. Parker]

Not as far as I know. Is anything else?

[Patricia Gulley]

IJ,
Do you mean you know a place where e-mysteries are doing well? Who are they?
POD do pretty well, but e ?
Tell, tell, tell!

[I. J. Parker]

Sorry. My point was that e-mysteries do not sell -- in spite of the fact the big publishing houses insist on obtaining the rights. I wondered if anything at all sells as an electronic book and see that erotica do. Thanks, Pepper. The explanation also makes sense. And amused me. The plain brown wrapper. :)

[Pepper Smith]

Romance does pretty well, especially the erotic stuff. But that makes sense, because the reader isn't displaying a book cover that gives away what she's reading, and the format makes it easy to take it anywhere if you've got a handheld reader. Other books don't tend to sell as well, but I think it's because the readers of other genres haven't been as quick to adopt the ebook format.