Don’t you just hate it when you start reading a book you think you’ll enjoy, only to discover a few chapters in that it’s not your cup of tea? It’s either more like a mug of weak church coffee or a shot of mescal.

Maybe you’ve had that experience with a book labeled a classic, best-seller, or award-winner. If the title was assigned reading for a class, you probably slogged through to save your grade. If your book club chose it, you might have skimmed the pages or skipped to the final chapter. But when you buy a book for your own entertainment or edification, you want a higher degree of confidence that you’ll like it. (For mass market maybe books, the library can be a safer bet.)

That’s one of the reasons I gave Optics a descriptive subtitle: A Novel About Women and Work and Midlife Muddles. Turns out, that may not have been explicit enough. Comments from a couple of pre-publication readers suggest that they were expecting something different from the book—specifically, romance.

I didn’t think anything in the title, subtitle, or back-of-book marketing blurb would lead readers to expect a romance plot, but I may have underestimated the power of the romance genre to shape expectations.

When Women’s Fiction Equals Romance

This story on Bustle, “Who Reads Romance Novels? Infographic Tells All,” is a few years old, but the data are probably similar today. Nielsen BookScan, which collects book-related data, found that in 2015, young, white women constituted the largest reading block (59%) for romance novels; readers over 45 were 40% of the market. Now think about every sort of fiction genre published—from literary to fantasy and from historical novels to mysteries. In 2015, nearly one-third of all fiction titles in all formats—29%—were romance novels. That’s a powerful percentage.

My concern about Optics potentially being misidentified as a romance doesn’t come from a place of intellectual disdain. The best romance writers are professionals in every sense; one of my fellow graduate students earned her PhD in English and promptly began a successful career as a romance novelist. And romance novels aren’t necessarily shunned by the supposedly intellectual elite: One of my English Department colleagues in my first academic job frequently reported, with no shame, that she relaxed with “bodice-rippers.” Then there’s the business side. The writing and selling of romance has helped thousands of women support their families, and I’m all for women’s financial independence.

My challenge is alerting potential readers that Optics isn’t a romance novel. Well, one subplot does have a romance element, but it certainly doesn’t drive the main plot. Social media is one way to reach readers, so I created a couple of tongue-in-check Reader Advisory graphics to post on Facebook and Instagram. They’re designed to acknowledge the pervasiveness of romance plots and the odds that a reader will be younger than my book’s main character.

To be clear: I want Optics: A Novel About Women and Work and Midlife Muddles to sell as many copies as possible. I’m not trying to drive away potential buyers. Instead, my Reader Advisories are intended to guide readers to a book I hope they’ll enjoy and tell their friends about. Who knows, maybe a few forewarned romance readers will be curious enough to read Optics and will love it. After all, the reviewer at the San Francisco Book Review called it “a perfect beach read,” so you know it’s not self-consciously literary. (You should be able to find the review online in a week or two after they batch-upload the latest reviews.)

Defying Categories and Expectations

The assumption that Optics might focus on romance isn’t just influenced by the overwhelming number of romance titles in the marketplace. It’s also aided by industry categorization.

Marketing in the book industry—whether you’re dealing with a book published by a Big Five traditional publisher or an indie publisher—is driven by metadata (data that provides information about the title). An essential piece of book metadata is the genre category or categories. Traditional print book distributors, bookstores, and online retailers use slightly different lists of categories, but they typically use the same big buckets. Those big categories help both physical and online booksellers group any given book with similar books so browsers can find what they’re looking for. But the more specific your category, the higher the probability that someone interested in just the sort of book you’ve written will find that title. Such a category does not exist for Optics.

The organization that standardizes these categories, the Book Industry Study Group (BISG), doesn’t have a category for contemporary fiction about women in the workplace. That omission may seem inconsequential, but there is a category for fiction that focuses on the Amish and Mennonites. No disrespect to those faith groups, but I would guess that category is a rather small piece of the fiction pie. Of the 47 subcategories for romance fiction, you will find one for workplace themes. But what if the novel has a workplace theme and isn’t romance? You’re out of luck. There’s no category for fiction that happens to be about women in the workplace—nevermind midlife women. You’re left with a general category for fiction about women.

Perhaps one day BISG will amend its list to include a category that better fits Optics: A Novel About Women and Work and Midlife Muddles. In the meantime, I wrote the book I couldn’t find to read, and I hope others will discover in Optics what they’ve been looking for.

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Optics: A Novel About Women and Work and Midlife Muddles—my debut novel—examines both literal and figurative optics: Kris, the main character, is marketing manager for an eyewear company; how she and her over-fifty friends are perceived by others—especially bosses and potential employers—is at the heart of major plot developments.

Women in the vicinity of fifty, give or take a decade, are literally in the middle of their lives. Yet just when they hit their prime in terms of career development and wisdom, society often renders them invisible. In spite of a few actors and entertainers who have gained notoriety for looking fabulous after fifty, the average fifty-plus woman in a corporate milieu has a target on her back. Too often the job market discounts her value, assuming she’s got nothing new to offer.

Ageism is real, but judging people (aloud or internally) by how they look is also an age-old human trait we all express from childhood to elderhood. Meanwhile, we’re all PR flacks, trying to control the optics of our journey through this world, regardless of race, age, sex, or income. I’m no exception.

**Women Need to Control the Optics**

Managing our personal and professional optics—how we’re perceived by other people—can be a high-stakes game, especially for women. Presenting the perfect balance of warmth and competency during job interviews is one of the most obvious examples. But a razor-sharp résumé and friendly smile aren’t enough. Conveying the ideal package to a prospective employer involves managing the optics of everything from clothing and makeup to posture.

That’s one of the messages in Comeback Careers: Rethink, Refresh, Reinvent Your Success—at 40, 50, and Beyond, which confronts the reality of ageism and offers advice on how to fight it. The book, coauthored by MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski and her sister-in-law Ginny Brzezinski, counsels women returning to the workforce after a child-rearing gap and those switching careers in midlife to ensure their skills are relevant and updated. Dress and language, the authors add, also need to be contemporary. In a March video interview with Leslie Jane Seymour via her Covey Club, Ginny Brzezinski noted that glasses and haircuts and dress do make a difference in how midlife women are perceived.

That trio held me back from posting a photo on this website for several months.

Clothes Make the Novelist

I’m not fond of having my picture taken and made public even under optimal circumstances—whatever those might be. My Instagram feed, for example (@GailReit), is the antithesis of the selfie-stuffed social media presence. I’d probably still be virtually invisible online were it not for a previous job that required me to be active on multiple platforms. Even now I avoid posting selfies whenever possible, but an author website must have an author photo, I’m told by the experts. Besides, web crawlers like to find photos, so if you want people to find your work online, you gotta play the algorithm game.

Even though I had a business-appropriate headshot I liked that was less than two years old, it didn’t seem right for an author photo. I didn’t look like any of the other novelists I saw online. Though the white shirt, navy jacket, and string of pearls were suitable (ahem) for a certain type of nonfiction author—which I once was and still am—the ensemble didn’t convey “novelist.”

So what does a novelist look like? Judging by photos of both famous and “emerging” novelists, they seldom wear jackets. Whether the writer is promoted by a big-time PR firm or presenting herself as an indie, jackets—when worn at all—tend to be leather or unstructured.

OK, so I could find alternative apparel in my closet, but then there was the hair. Another reason to procrastinate.

Blame It on the Coronavirus

In response to the New Mexico governor’s (wise) guidance in early March that all nonessential businesses close to the public, my hair stylist was unavailable in April for a scheduled appointment. I normally go three to four months between cuts and enjoy the transition between chin-length and longer hair, but this spring I wanted a reshaping before taking a new headshot.

That’s because back in November we’d tried something new—a much shorter style than usual. The cut was perfectly executed—my stylist is an artist; it just wasn’t me, and it didn’t grow out in a way I was familiar with. So I was ready for a fresh cut—which would have to wait indefinitely.

Meanwhile, my eyewear was also in limbo.

Glasses: An Obvious Metaphor

The eyeglasses on the cover of Optics, the main character’s career in marketing an eyewear brand, and the primary plot are all grounded in the real-world importance of vision care and prescription glasses. But frames can also make a style statement.

I’ve worn glasses since second grade, and I always look forward to the periodic change in frames. As the Brzezinskis note, you don’t put your best face forward with an outdated frame style. I knew I’d need a new author photo before Optics launched, and my current frames were just beginning to show a bit of wear (if viewed from the right angle), so I ordered a new pair when I went for an eye exam earlier this year.

Shortly thereafter, my optician’s office closed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. My new Spanish-made frames were somewhere on this planet, though who knew when they’d sit on my nose.

Fighting Perfectionism

“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” I tell myself a lot these days as we continue to self-isolate. After all, there’s no single “novelist” look, and the classic image of the author as idiosyncratic in habit and dress simply doesn’t apply to me. Besides, I don’t believe author photos sell books. Covers—that’s another story.

And so, with my hard-won midlife wisdom, I decided to make the best-for-now of my perfectly ordinary self. I gave a few snips to the front edges of my hair, pulled on a favorite sweater, donned my timeless-design frames (which my trendy optician’s shop still sells), and posed for a photo.

The author photo was necessary, but I think you’ll find the novel is sufficient without it. Optics: A Novel About Women and Work and Midlife Muddles will be available September 1 from online and physical booksellers.

In the end, I realized my angst about the author photo was mostly a coping mechanism. It was about acting as if—as if things that mattered before COVID-19 still matter, and will matter after COVID-19.