When Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees was released in 2002, it met with encouraging yet modest sales. It was only after book clubs started discovering it and recommending it word-of-mouth, over the course of the following year, that it accumulated the kind of readership that would push it onto the New York Times bestseller list, where it stayed for two-and-a-half years. The book club craze isn’t over—in fact, it’s in a boom. The New York Times recently estimated that five million Americans belong to book clubs. Publishers understand the boon that the book club movement represents, and will often give books designed to meet this market additional support at the publisher’s website . These titles often have staying power. I just heard of a club reading The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, which also came out in 2002. For the math-impaired, that’s twelve years ago. Especially with book club fiction, a title need not be out three months then die a quiet death as so many cynics a...

Since I am one of the many authors whose novels fall within all three categories, I’ve been known to use "women’s fiction," "book club fiction," and "literary fiction" interchangeably. I use "women’s fiction" when I’m around women who embrace the term, "book club fiction" when among men and women, and "literary fiction" when among academics or women I know to be especially sensitive to gender politics. I don’t mean to misrepresent; I just want to give my book its best chance of being read. So what do these terms mean, anyway? Women’s fiction is a story that portrays the emotional journey of a woman. It is not necessarily written by a woman (Nicholas Sparks) nor read exclusively by women, although these implications bother many who choose not to use the term. It need not have any romantic elements, but if it does, the story will not resolve on the heroics of a man. The stories typically end on a note of hope as oppose...