Agents for "New Adult"

Okay, I'll bite - what's a "New Adult" novel?

Carlene

Call Sign: Love
The Colors of Death
An Extra Pair of Eyes - 1/2010
www.writewordsinc.com

Stormy Love
The Worst Evil
Mind Echoes - 1/2010
www.whiskeycreek.com

FINDER! - 1/2010
www.wildchildpublishing.com

Mysterous Gift - TBA
www.cobblestonepress.com

I think everyone is sorta waiting to see honestly. A lot of agents still say that age group is a tough sell, though hopefully the St Martins contest has opened eyes to the possibilities.

Carlene said:

Okay, I'll bite - what's a "New Adult" novel?
http://www.cobblestonepress.com

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Marketing category targeting the age group between young adult and adult readers. Intentional crossover appeal for twenty-somethings and older teens. St. Martin's is at the helm of the new genre classification.

Until the net of potential publishers widens beyond St Martin's, I don't know if many agents will begin advertising for New Adult manuscripts. They won't rep it if they can't sell it to anyone.

"New adult" is a stupid name. They're not "new" adults if they've already been young adults. "Transitional", or something similar would have been better IMO.

I don't care about the name. I care about the category. Personally I am sick of everything being categorised to death, but if my MS is being rejected basically because it doesn't fit into one of them, then I'll happily support a category that would allow it to be published.

Here's to New Adult! Let's keep spreading the rumours people!

Toothpaste said:

I don't care about the name. I care about the category. Personally I am sick of everything being categorised to death, but if my MS is being rejected basically because it doesn't fit into one of them, then I'll happily support a category that would allow it to be published.

Here's to New Adult! Let's keep spreading the rumours people!

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HERE, HERE!

Useful post from Agent Kristin about the new SJP, the team behind it, and the potential commercial pitfalls:

http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2009/12/new-line-at-smp.html

And from the comments section, a link to Jodi Meadows' blog: http://jmeadows.livejournal.com/725113.html

Interesting stuff.

I myself blogged about it last night, though nothing you all haven't heard me say on AW about it before.

Sounds like a horrible idea, to me. I see no need for it, and wonder why it's needed at all. There is no gap in readers that any demographics I've seen reveal.

If it works out, great, but it sounds like a lot of wasted effort and money.

Yeah, why on earth would college students want to read about someone their own age? <---sarcasm

Jamesaritchie said:

Sounds like a horrible idea, to me. I see no need for it, and wonder why it's needed at all. There is no gap in readers that any demographics I've seen reveal.

If it works out, great, but it sounds like a lot of wasted effort and money.

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Actually, um, yes there is James. If you wrote YA you would understand how tough it is to sell a book for just this slightly older age range because as it stands there is no such category. Good books are flat out rejected because they aren't YA but they aren't quite considered Adult either. As I said in my blog (and above as well), I'm not a fan of categories in general, but seeing as that's evidently how the publishing world does business I'm all for the creation of a new category that will allow such books finally to get published.

Hmm, there may be a market for college books, but college is kind of a less interesting time to read about than younger or older stages. Or maybe I'm just thinking about the college-set stories I wrote when I was a creative-writing major, and all of the others in my fiction workshops. Ugh. Even the best written are cringe-worthy and best filed away with the papers on Plato and macroeconomics.

They aren't just talking about college books though.

This is the thing. Try these days to sell a book about someone 18 - 25 but written with a YA tone. It's near impossible. No one knows how to market it. They feel it's too old for YA but too young for Adult. This is of course a big joke, as considering how much Adults enjoy YA there is obviously a market for Adult work that suits that age bracket, but still, publishers are rejecting these works.

It isn't just about college students reading fiction. It's also about late highschool students still wanting to read up, about people in their mid twenties wanting something like YA but without all the new sense of discovery that YA brings. They don't want books about first love, they want books about the quarter life crisis etc. They want Bridget Jones, but for their age. They also want historical YAs, but ones again, that are a bit more mature. With characters they can relate to better.

I agree on the surface it is absurd to create a new category, but publishers seriously aren't publishing these kinds of books. It's really weird to me actually. So, like I've said before, if this helps more authors get published because publishers finally acknowledge their existence is worthy, then I'm cool with that.

Yeah Cyia - so true, why would we want to read about twenty somethings in university when we can read about 17 year olds in highschool with supernatural boyfriends??

Heck, you (publishing industry) just have this untapped bunch of readers, with expendable income at the ready and who are reading YA for a fix - seriously why would publishers want to tap into that?

*headdesk*

Seriously, i think this is brilliant and about time! So many of my friends say 'aw i wish i was 15 now cause theres such a great selection for YA' - so i'm all for a genre/category that tailors to my age group.

hey want books about the quarter life crisis etc. They want Bridget Jones, but for their age. They also want historical YAs, but ones again, that are a bit more mature. With characters they can relate to better.

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Yes totally, this is it exactly! Books about life, sometimes about college or your first job or trying to make it etc.

So basically Toothpaste, i shall join your campaign!

Don't get it. Back in the 80's when I grew out of Judy Blume and the clan (I don't know--aged 14 or 15?) it was because Jilly Cooper, Jackie Collins, Stephen King, Robert Ludlum etc, etc, snuck into my teenaged world and kicked the cr*p out of what I was reading before.

I mean, seriously. I think most 18-25 year olds (especially those I know) can keep up with what's going on in adult fiction without needing their own 'age specific' MCs and plotlines. For crying out loud--they're grown ups!

But now I'm thinking about it...what I'm currently touting to agents might fit quite nicely in New Adult--paranormal with a good dose of sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll and a 26 y/o MC.

I've had second thoughts. Come on publishers, pressure the agents into finding you some New Adult then throw your entire marketing budget at it!

26 is plain old adult fiction.

I think the issue isn't so much with the readers as with the publishers. The industry has changed since the 80s. Since the 90s. Since 2008. Booksellers these days are so much more cautious (at least the ones at the big box stores) and if books don't fit into a neat little category, they don't want it for their store. So the publisher isn't going to want to publish anything in that category.

I mean, back in the day we had no YA either, and Catcher in the Rye and To Kill A Mockingbird did just fine. But things are different now, if there isn't a box to put it in, then there isn't a point in it existing. This age range has been confusing publishers since YA became a category. Ironically, if YA had never happened (and I'm talking the YA of today, of the last five years, of actual teenagers, not MG which used to be categorised as YA), we'd probably be able to publish New Adult books more readily, but now since we've created this division, people feel a need to divide up books between adult and not. So when you've got a book that's written with all the same sensibilities as a YA, but is aimed at an older audience . . . the robot starts to sputter, and cannot compute.

We can defend adult reading as much as we want, pshaw the concept of New Adult (back in my day we didn't need such categories . . .) but fact is there are books that are not being published because they don't "compute". And that's not right. In my mind, publishers and book buyers should just get over it, but since they're not and this is so far the only way I've seen to allow for such books to be published . . . then I'll play this game.


ETA: here are two really interesting blog posts on the subject by an author (Diana Peterfreund) who has discovered that, actually, she might be an author of New Adult: http://www.dianapeterfreund.com/on-new-adult/ http://www.dianapeterfreund.com/more-on-new-adult/

Cyia said:

26 is plain old adult fiction.

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Shoot! Thought I might sneak onto the crest of a wave there.

If this becomes a real category, mine definitely qualifies. 20-year-old protag in college.

Cyia said:

If this becomes a real category, mine definitely qualifies. 20-year-old protag in college.

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Mine might. 18-year-old protagonist in the year after highschool graduation. If it got picked up as a series, she'd be older.