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Originally Posted by Hitch
Meera, you're assuming it's only relevant to digital stories. And it's not necessarily "different." At Amazon, you get TWO categories--period. Maybe, sure, you choose AA and Romance, or AA and Mystery or LGBTQ & whatever, but what if it's YA AA Romance? You're going to miss out on something. It's NOT only for B&M.
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I've given examples above of Amazon books currently ranked in three categories. For all I know they are listed in more and only ranked in three.
Right now, Pride by Ibi Zoboi, a YA AA romance, is ranked #1 in Teen & Young Adult Fiction about Class Difference, #1 in Teen & Young Adult Diversity & Multicultural Fiction, and #1 in Teen & Young Adult Historical Romance. I'm not sure if there's a way to tell whether it is listed in other categories also, but clearly it's not confined to only two on Amazon. If it is confined to two elsewhere (or three on Amazon), that's a limitation with the implementation of that particular system, and not something immutable or essential.
On Goodreads, Pride is listed in five front-page categories (Young Adult, Romance, Fiction, Contemporary, and Retellings), and clicking through to all shelves gives many more.
Another issue is who chooses the categories. Is it Amazon, or is it the author/publisher? My understanding is that it is not Amazon, so this is not being imposed from a seller with the effect of limiting/ghettoising the audience. I am also finding pages saying that a book can be listed in ten categories, though that seems to be starting to get into the search-optimisation arcana. Either way, two is demonstrably not the limit.
There is also the issue of discoverability. There is one main way to discover books in a bookshop: go to the genre section you want, and look at the shelves. There are also paid endcaps/front-of-store displays and hand-selling, but going to your favourite genre is the main way. On a digital store, categories/browse paths are not the only way to discover books. Are they even the main way? I don't use that at all for discovering digital books, but I'm obviously not everyone.
I don't know what you mean by "you're assuming it's only relevant to digital stories"? I am, again, talking about print books in bricks and mortar bookshops. The ONLY problem with shelving AA romance in the AA section is if this means that therefore AA romance won't appear in the romance section, and will therefore not be available to people looking for romance books in the romance section. I'd be perfectly happy if they were double-shelved.
If they are digital books and they are available both to romance seekers and also available to seekers of AA books of no particular genre, what is the problem with that, in your mind?
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So, what's the difference? Why is LGBTQ-category movies okay and good, and AA-category books BAD?
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I haven't asserted that. If it was a hardcopy DVD store and all of the action movies with LGBTQ characters were pulled out of the Action section by the shopkeeper and shoved in the little LGBTQ section at the back instead, I'd object to that too.