What Genre is Ready Player One?

Sold as adult, so it's adult. I haven't seen it marketed as YA anywhere, though it's won a YA award I think.

I read it for a YA class in college but yeah it's probably adult/NA as opposed to YA

twright said:

Well, that explains a few things. Well, more like 53 things...(query rejections)

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Or it may be the query - have you posted it in SYW yet?

I've never seen it talked about as a YA book and I'm fairly involved in YA fiction communities and reviewing. I've only seen it marketed as adult fiction.

It doesn't fit YA because YA generally sets the age bar at 18, has a romance subplot and focuses on coming-of-age themes in various guises. NA is a fuzzy category at the moment that isn't widely used, but as far as I can tell it's currently being used to refer to steamy, romance-focussed fiction.

EMaree said:

NA is a fuzzy category at the moment that isn't widely used, but as far as I can tell it's currently being used to refer to steamy, romance-focussed fiction.

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The steamy vagueness of NA seems to be condensing into YA with sex scenes.

twright said:

How would agents categorize "Ready Player One" (assuming you're familiar with it) - is it YA, NA or just adult SF&F?

I don't see it anywhere classified as YA, and yet it won a YA award. And most of the main characters are 18 to early 20's, in what I'd call the NA range.

My own work is very similar in many respects, so knowing how agents would classify this book will help me appropriately target my own.

Thanks!!!

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YA very, very often has characters of this age. I don't think the "New Adult" category makes any sense at all. Whoever came up with it must not read enough YA.

But age of the characters has pretty much nothing to do with genre. An adult novel can have a ten year old protagonist, and an MG novel can be filled mostly with adults. It's the story, the theme, and how it's told that makes for genre.

I've read RP1 a few times and love it to death. This is just speculation on my part but the main protag is sixteen so one would think it would be marketed as YA however the main draw of the book is this fascination with eighties pop culture. That would lend it more appeal to older people and I would bet that thinking went into whether to market it as YA or Adult.

MttStrn said:

I've read RP1 a few times and love it to death. This is just speculation on my part but the main protag is sixteen so one would think it would be marketed as YA however the main draw of the book is this fascination with eighties pop culture. That would lend it more appeal to older people and I would bet that thinking went into whether to market it as YA or Adult.

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The age of the protagonist only really goes one way; if they're too old, it means it probably isn't a YA book, as they're dealing with Grown-Up Problems the YA audience may not be interested in. A novel for adults, on the other hand, doesn't become less so if the protagonist is a child.

Torgo said:

The age of the protagonist only really goes one way; if they're too old, it means it probably isn't a YA book, as they're dealing with Grown-Up Problems the YA audience may not be interested in. A novel for adults, on the other hand, doesn't become less so if the protagonist is a child.

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Agreed. But I feel that the Wade in RP1 is not dealing with Grown Up Problems but problems that every teenager faces regarding social interactino issues and feelings of belonging. You can't tell me the multi -national corporation trying to kill him is an adult problem because that stuff is all over YA

MttStrn said:

Agreed. But I feel that the Wade in RP1 is not dealing with Grown Up Problems but problems that every teenager faces regarding social interactino issues and feelings of belonging. You can't tell me the multi -national corporation trying to kill him is an adult problem because that stuff is all over YA

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Oh, yeah - I think it is definitely a crossover book, both ways, and it would have been marketed both ways too, to a greater or lesser extent; I haven't seen it show up on YA blogs, but they did at least enter it for YA prizes, so it must have been at least part of their thinking.

The boundaries between YA and SF/F in terms of audience demographic are pretty vague, but you do have to make some important decisions when you publish a book. The metadata you attach to one - things like BIC codes - tell retailers where to shelve it and who's responsible for it. Adult and children's buyers and their storefronts are segmented, so you have a binary choice to make there. You also need to decide which sales force is going to sell the books in, as that also involves specialised staff who shape the path the book takes to the consumer.

If you think your book has crossover appeal, in the manner of RP1 or, say, Cory Doctorow's YA, then that's a selling point and should be mentioned to an agent. You don't need to make those binary choices at the very first stage. You can leave the first one - which imprints to pitch - to the agent if you give her that information.

I thought of it as being simply science fiction. You could make an argument for YA based on the age of the MC, but it didn't really feel like a YA book to me. After all, teenagers wouldn't get a lot of the references. I didn't get some of them, and I was 22 when I read it.

From what I've seen, in terms of number of titles published, it's Category Romance, nothing else even close. Am I wrong here?

caw

EMaree said:

I've never seen it talked about as a YA book and I'm fairly involved in YA fiction communities and reviewing. I've only seen it marketed as adult fiction.

It doesn't fit YA because YA generally sets the age bar at 18, has a romance subplot and focuses on coming-of-age themes in various guises. NA is a fuzzy category at the moment that isn't widely used, but as far as I can tell it's currently being used to refer to steamy, romance-focussed fiction.

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using your general standards RP1 would fit the bill of a YA book (MC is 17-18 I believe though someone earlier said 16, there is the romance subplot with Art3mis, and has a coming of age theme of a boy dealing with growing up learning to see the world in a bigger picture rather then his narrow life he envisions.

However it does contain strong language (the f-bomb is dropped a number of times, sex and masturbation is talked about quite frankly, there is a lesbian char. who portrays a man in The Oasis). I think crossover would be the best term. But I think an argument could be made it's at least OLDER YA.

Sci-Fi for sure, potentially NA (depending on whom you're talking to and their definition of NA)

I think it's fair to point out that the Alex award (which is what I assume you're talking about) is an award for adult books that also appeal to young adults. So, yes, READY PLAYER ONE is science fiction. It might be considered literary science fiction, which may make a bit of difference on the agents you target, but that, to me, comes under the heading of looking at who reps/has repped similar books.

There's nothing wrong with being science fiction. It's a perfectly fine genre and one which contains all sorts of books with young adults, new adults, children, adults and even aliens as characters. Agents sign science fiction novels all the time. They sell them all the time. If your novel is science fiction...that's fine. Embrace it.

It is not a teen book (though it has teen appeal) - my bookstores have all shelved it in regular fiction, sometimes with a copy or two also tucked in to SF/F.

READY PLAYER ONE was published by the adult side of Random House, not the young readers side of things. For the purposes of a querying and comp titles, it's an adult book.

I think what I've learned here is that genres are very confusing. I read Ready Player One and it never occurred to me that it might be Young Adult. Seemed pretty science fiction-y to me.