Back in the old days before internet book sales (remember that?) – it was expected that finding a specific ‘niche’ genre novel was something of a challenge. Especially if you didn’t have a particular title/author in mind.

You went into the bookstore and found the Fiction section, then ran your eyes across the shelves, hoping a cover (or even a spine) would jump out at you screaming ‘Me! Me! Here I am! I’m in your genre!’

It made finding niche books something of a mission – but if you loved your genre, then it was one you were prepared to take. An adventure. A sort of ‘Indiana Jones and the Niche Novel’.

Then along came Amazon with its online search engine, and the adventure was basically over. Finished. Because now there was a massive database and lots of little algorithms all scurrying around with their magnifying glasses searching for you. No need for you to set out with your fedora pulled low and your bullwhip at the ready – these obliging computer bots were there to riffle through Amazon’s 16,000+ categories and pick out the next read in your chosen genre.

Job done now – right?

Wrong.

Not if your category is very, very, niche. So much so, that even Amazon’s bots still have to scratch their digital heads and gibber hopelessly at you.

Who’d have known – that sometimes a niche is just too esoteric, even for Amazon? So it’s back to you doing all the legwork again – typing in search terms and hitting ‘return’ with crossed fingers; or finding a title you’ve already enjoyed and scrolling through book after book in the ‘also read’ section…

Yes – this is exactly the challenge I have faced, but as an author rather than a reader.

That’s because I need to categorise my books on Amazon, and the better my categories are, the more potential readers Amazon will send my way. But the sad fact is, my own niche genre – ‘Modern woman time travels back to Tudor England’ – doesn’t actually seem to exist.

Now, before you say, ‘Jonathan, then why are you writing in such a small niche – surely you’re limiting your market?’ let me explain.

Back in the early 1990s I wrote a musical called Spirit of History, featuring (you guessed) a modern woman who time-travels back to Tudor England – then gets accused of being a witch. And as it was a stage show, no book genre was relevant.

Fast forward twenty years, and I decided I wanted to write a novel. It seemed a natural thing to upcycle my earlier musical’s book into the novel it could have come from. The result was The Witchfinder’s Well – published in 2015.

So I hadn’t written to an existing genre – rather I was simply writing the book I wanted to write.

Ahh, the innocence of youth.

So now I had a published book, but I needed to find a genre to put it in. And that’s when I discovered that ‘Modern woman time travels back to Tudor England’ was too small even for Amazon to notice.

My book was effectively hiding down a small culvert of the Amazon river, destined to forever be undiscovered.

So I thought I would see if I could find other books in my genre, and see what ‘main categories’ they were in. Then I could back my book out of the culvert and let it float into the main stream of Amazon discoverability.

And yes, it was a challenge. But after taking out my fedora, donning my leather jacket and doing much legwork, I eventually narrowed my search down. And what do you know? There are a fair few titles in my category! Here are the ones I originally found:

• Twin Flames by Rachel Henke – where Cara, a modern woman, discovers she has a parallel life in the court of Henry VIII
• When Love Unlocks Time by Camilla Cornish – where Miranda turns a corner and stumbles into the royal court of the 1530s
• The Thornless Rose by Morgan O’Neill – where Anne Howard follows a WW2 doctor back in time to Elizabethan London
• The Anne Boleyn Cypher (A Timeless Falcon) by Phillipa Vincent-Conolly – where student Beth Wickers finds a magic ring that transports her back to the home of Anne Boleyn
• Le Temps Viendra by Sarah Morris – where a modern girl called Anne falls through time to discover she is now Anne Boleyn
• The Daughter of Time by Sarah Woodbury – where modern Meg finds herself in Medieval Wales (admittedly not Tudor, but not too far off)
• A Shadow in Time by Anna Kensington – where WW2 Maeve finds herself in the aftermath of the Wars of the Roses
• The Forgotten Sister by Nicola Cornick – a time-slip novel of Lizzie in the present day and Amy Robsart, ill-fated wife of Robert Dudley, in Elizabethan England.

Quite a collection!

And sadly, little consistency in the main categories across them all. So come on, Amazon, do all of us a favour. Recognise ‘Modern woman time travels back to Tudor England’ as a sub-category in its own right! Help all those Historical Fiction readers who love the idea of time-travelling back to the 16th century to find those of us who are telling this very story!

Then they can find their next favourite book in the genre without having to conduct a search worthy of the great Dr. Jones himself!