Lad Lit

[K-Mark]

I tried asking this in the "Ask the Agent" section but didn't get much of a response. Does anyone know the current status of lad-lit? I know it was hot and then crashed. Wondering if anyone still cares about or writes it. Or did it just get consumed into mainstream.

[Scrawler]

There's an article in Publisher's Weekly (http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA406268.html) but it's dated 2004--was it already over in 2004?
Looks like a more recent article in The Chronicle (http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=w5nt0m56vb6544g9t4nl592zb66h49v0) says lad-lit is more or less dead and explains why the idea didn't quite catch on.

[JanDarby]

Dead.

Actually, I'm never sure it was all that alive. There were a few authors who were given that label, but by the time the label existed, the trend was dead, amd only those first two or three authors survived it.

Recently read an agent's blog (Lit Agent X?) where she'd taken on a Lad Lit client, really loved the book, and the genre had just appeared, but by the time she started to market the book, and within a few weeks of the genre's birth, the genre was dead.

JD

[Maryn]

I'm unafraid to let my ignorance show: What's Lad Lit? YA aimed at boys? Erotica geared toward the members of NAMBLA?

Maryn (I know, eew-w-w-w!)

[K-Mark]

What's Lad Lit?

Fiction about and aimed at the 20-something male crowd

[K-Mark]

Jan, I saw that article, too. I forget where. I guess like everyone has said, it's dead.

[JanDarby]

I should have said -- doesn't mean your story is dead.

Chick Lit writers are being advised to re-label their work, along the lines of "lighthearted contemporary coming-of-age story" or "romantic comedy" or the like. Editors/agents are saying that while Chick Lit as a genre is dead, the snarky voice is alive and well and living in assorted other genres.

Pitch the story differently, that's all.

JD

[K-Mark]

Pitch the story differently, that's all.

Agreed. That's what I plan on doing, I was just making sure there wasn't one little nitch anywhere trying to grow.