I wanted to have my query checked in the forums, and a poster said that my story sounded more like YA than fantasy.
What's YA?
I'm assuming it's a type of genre.
What's YA?
I'm assuming it's a type of genre.
What's YA?
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Wait a minute--couldn't a book be YA Fantasy? Or is YA a category all on its own? I ask because I'm selectively querying agents who represent YA and Fantasy... Does this mean if they represent YA, it doesn't matter which sub-category?
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YA is the demographic. Every YA has a sub-genre or subject. So yes, you can have YA Fantasy, YA Sci-Fi, YA paranormal, contemporary, non-fiction etc.
I was wondering what the sales numbers where for say, a YA SF&F as apposed to normal
SF&F. Anyone know the numbers, or where to find them?
SF&F. Anyone know the numbers, or where to find them?
It would depend on the book. I can name about equal numbers of high-selling authors in both YA and adult fiction demographics.
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YA is quite succesful right now, although no one can seem to determine if that's because more youth are reading or because more adults are reading YA. Although Sci-Fi is probably a bad example, because Sci-Fi YA is quite hard to sell at present.
Maybe Harry Potter has got something to do with the current success of YA... and my money would be on the success being due to adults reading YA.
I don't know if this fact is true but in "stupid white men", Michael Moore says there is something like 44 million american who can only read to 4th grade level. The number of illiterate people was continuously dropping in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, thanks to more and more people getting access to better education; now, it seems that what they call functional illiteracy is currently on the rise in western societies. It's something that actually concerns me
I don't know if this fact is true but in "stupid white men", Michael Moore says there is something like 44 million american who can only read to 4th grade level. The number of illiterate people was continuously dropping in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, thanks to more and more people getting access to better education; now, it seems that what they call functional illiteracy is currently on the rise in western societies. It's something that actually concerns me
Usually anything from 30-70k words long, but I've seen longer and shorter.
Maybe Harry Potter has got something to do with the current success of YA... and my money would be on the success being due to adults reading YA.
I don't know if this fact is true but in "stupid white men", Michael Moore says there is something like 44 million american who can only read to 4th grade level. The number of illiterate people was continuously dropping in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, thanks to more and more people getting access to better education; now, it seems that what they call functional illiteracy is currently on the rise in western societies. It's something that actually concerns me
I'm with you with adults reading YA, but not because they can only handle material written at the fourth grade level. YA is interesting. It has plenty of literary merits and deals with one of the hardest themes out there -- coming of age. It's not drivel written for the illiterate.
I suggest you get yourself to the book store and pick out some choice YA novels.
This thread has some suggestions toward the end. So does this and this thread.
My theory is that it's because there's a hell of a lot of *good* YA coming out now, especially in fantasy. (Maybe a bit less SF, but Scott Westerfield's books seem to be doing quite well.)
I'd agree with what Esopha says but expand it further. "Coming of age" means looking into all the hard questions: not just "who am I?" and "who do I want to be?" but "why are we all here?" and "how can I deal with reality?" and "what is reality anyway?" - all the questions that so many people face as adolescents and forget when they become adults. That's why, I think, so many recent adult books deal only with mundane or sordid subjects. The best adult books come back to the big questions, just less directly and often through from an oblique direction. And that's why so many adults who haven't forgotten what wonder is like to read YA.
I have to admit I didn't explain myself very clearly. I jumped from one assumption (rise of YA due to adults reading YA) to a question (possible rise of adult illiteracy), which obviously led you to believe I was linking the two, but I wasn't. As i said, IMHO, Harry Potter has attracted attention onto the YA market and of course, in no way would anyone think that adults read HP because they are illiterate!
One fact (adults reading YA) made me think of a literacy statistic I had just read (I started reading "stupid white men" two days ago), and voila, the misunderstanding arose.
I do sometimes read YA novels, though not many of them admittedly. But I am not suggesting adults who read them are illiterate. Quoting the statistics was more of an answer to the question "do young adults read more?"; I wish I could say they do, but as I said, I am a bit scared at the presumed level of functional illiteracy in our western culture, when we thought we had beat illiteracy years ago. I'm not saying we haven't; I'm merely asking "have we?".
Snipped for length.
Understood completely. Sorry for jumping down your throat on a Friday afternoon.
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Yes, many more adults are reading the YA stuff now, because it IS so good, and doesn't spend half the book justifying that it's fantasy. Yanno, added blood, gore and sex just to push it off the youth shelf at the bookstore. Personally I can't get enough Tamora Pierce, Rick Riordan and James Owen, just because they write SUCH GOOD STUFF. They're YA/MG books and I adore them.
MG books tend to run the 30-60K range, YA between 50-75. The caveat is that since Harry Potter, MG and YA fantasy have allowed longer wordcounts to see the market. Right now I'm reading Shannon Hale's The Goose Girl and it's a good 300 pages. It was in the YA section, and it's completely fabulous.
Reader ages:
MG usually 9-12 (Independent reader in the bookstore)
YA usually 13-18(Youth or YA in the bookstore)
There is a 'new' sort of category emerging, the 10-13 age group, where the books are a little above MG but not quite YA. Just write the book, let the publisher figure out where it goes in the bookstore.
MG books tend to run the 30-60K range, YA between 50-75. The caveat is that since Harry Potter, MG and YA fantasy have allowed longer wordcounts to see the market. Right now I'm reading Shannon Hale's The Goose Girl and it's a good 300 pages. It was in the YA section, and it's completely fabulous.
Reader ages:
MG usually 9-12 (Independent reader in the bookstore)
YA usually 13-18(Youth or YA in the bookstore)
There is a 'new' sort of category emerging, the 10-13 age group, where the books are a little above MG but not quite YA. Just write the book, let the publisher figure out where it goes in the bookstore.
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