Just curious - Is YA really so popular?

emstar94 said:

One of my lecturers thinks YA is the most popular genre there is. It's the only kind of writing I'll ever love

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It's not a genre; it's a marketing category.

writeonleanne said:

My knee jerk reaction was to be like, "Well, I definitely read adult literature when I was a teen!" and then scrambled to find studies that proved that teenagers read just as much adult literature vs. adults reading young adult literature.

I found some interesting articles. There are studies that show that technological advances are cutting into 'reading for fun.' (New Yorker: Do Teens Read Seriously Anymore? and Study: The Number of Teens Reading for Fun Keeps Declining), whereas 55% of YA books are purchased by adults (78% of time for their own reading, according to Publishers Weekly).

Anyway, take what you will out of these studies, but Harlequin has a point.

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Some polls suggest that teens and younger adults read more books per year than older adults to, on average.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/12/young-read-more-books-than-older-generation-research

However, the percentage of people who read voraciously and prodigiously seems to have declined in all age groups.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jordan...ults-less-than-5-books-per-year/#3178cd0149f1

It's not just teens who are distracted by other media. And it's possible that kids read fewer books as they get older because they don't see many adults reading, so they don't think of reading as a "grown up" thing to do.

There are people who think that it's shameful for adults to read books written for teens and children, though. I don't know why they care what other people read or how much exposure to YA fiction (aside from some of the bestsellers that got made into movies) these people actually have. I'm guessing that they think reading anything other than what they consider "literary fiction" is shameful too, or possibly think of all genre fiction as "for kids."

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/..._be_embarrassed_to_read_children_s_books.html

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordeba...-adult-fiction/adults-should-read-adult-books

Shameful or not, if you want to write for a given age demographic (and I believe that nearly all published authors of juvenile fiction are, in fact, adults), you need to read it.

@ Cornflake: I think YA is honestly a bit of both; while it is technically not a genre in the actual sense of the word, it is a marketing catigory that has none the less taken on qualities normally associated with a genre...mainly a shared set of tropes and themes, as well as a specific "identity." It's very similar to Shonen Manga in that sense. Technically, shonen is a marketing category and not a genre by the actual definition of the word "genre" (since "shonen" is by it's actual definition nothing more than manga marketed to teen/young adult boys)....yet most anime fans you talk to will refer to shonen as a "genre" because there are certain tropes and themes that tend to show up in shonen and define a lot of what shonen is to its fans, most of which do not show up in other anime marketing categories. (or at least show up as prevalent and straight as they do in Shonen.) There are so many tropes that pretty much all the manga in that marketing category share that most anime fans treat it as if it's a genre, despite it being a marketing category if you go by actual dictionary definitions.

I think YA is in the same boat. If you want to go purely by actual semantics and dictionary definitions, yes, it is not a genre, but a marketing catigory. However, like shonen manga, it has enough shared tropes and themes...and enough of an "identity" that it looks and feels a lot like its own genre, even if it is technically not. Very similar to how the tomato is a fruit in actual scientific terms, but tastes and looks more like a vegetable.

@ Roxxsmom: You ninja'ed me, but I'd like to know something....do those polls factor in required reading for schools? Do they factor in E-Books, webnovels and other books that may not be physical, but are none the less still novels in every way other than the fact they are digital rather than physical? If required reading for school is in fact factored into those polls, than the reason for that data becomes obvious....kids are reading more than adults because they have to, because schools are making them read things while adults have nobody forcing them to read if they don't want to. However, if omits required reading for schools...then I feel the poll becomes more a legit measure.

Likewise, if it's not factoring in E-books and Web Novels, the numbers may be lower than they should be, since there is a rather sizable group of teens (particularly teen boys) who only read self-published books and web novels because the books the traditional publishers are putting out don't appeal to their tastes. So if they are not factoring in self-published ebooks and free online web novels I can say with a fair bit of certainty their numbers will be a bit lower than they should be, though how much lower I cannot say.

Either way, its still interesting.

Yes, it is "so popular"; bookstore shelves of YA are among the largest in most any store. Bookstores will drop or downsize any poor-selling category in an instant.

airandarkness said:

One of the reasons I started writing YA a few years ago ... was because it was a newly popular, growing market that seemed easier to break into than the adult market.

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ONE - The more popular the market segment, the more competition there is. Jumping into the segment is the OPPOSITE of a good marketing strategy.

TWO - If you're not a fan of a category, DON'T try to write in it. You don't know enough to avoid the pitfalls and approach the payoffs.

THREE - Lots of people think YA writing is simple styles and simple contents. SURPRISE. The market has an amazing variety of styles, some of them the high literary. And the content ranges over all the usual adult themes, though with more of an emphasis on how they affect those struggling toward adulthood. It's as hard or harder to write good YA as it is to write any other category of writing.

I am a fan of the category, and was back then too. That's why I said that was one of the reasons I decided to write it. I was interested in writing fantasy for both YA and adults, and decided to focus on the YA side of things for a little while. And I never said anything about writing simple styles or content for YA, so not sure where that point came from (if it was intended to be in response to me). I don't think it's any easier to write YA than it is to write anything else.

As for the first point, I'm talking about when the market was new and beginning to grow in popularity. It was easier to break into it back then, as opposed to the present, since it's become so popular.