The Genre Re-Query

Did she give you reasons why she thought it wasn't YA? Why have you classed it as such? That would help us to help you!

YA fantasy seems to be an easier sell right now. So I think you're good.

However, this is a good illustration of the maxim that you probably shouldn't send out all your queries at once, because you might get some information that changes your plan.

On the other hand, now you can send out another query to the agents you passed over because they didn't rep YA.

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the difference between YA Fantasy and regular fantasy?

Smiling Ted said:

She didn't. However, I classed it as YA - per the direction of a YA editor at Tor - because my protagonist is a teenager.
The border seems to be porous.

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With due respect to your Aunt - and at the risk of incurring the wrath of librarians everywhere - I'd take the advice of your editor at Tor (where they ought to know a thing or two about YA vs straight fantasy) over that of a librarian.

Smiling Ted said:

Umm....
SLC - whom do you think are the biggest purchasers of YA books? And who would get into the most trouble with parents if they mischaracterized an adult book as YA?

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Wait, I'm confused.

Did your aunt say that it was inappropriate for a YA audience? Or did she say that it would be equally appropriate for an adult audience? Because I thought you meant the latter.

I was in a similar situation with a book that could go either way -- YA or fantasy (or horror... or literary...). I decided to query as YA and let the agent then determine whether to submit it as YA or adult. I chose YA for the query because the YA market is very strong right now and that's where I'd like to keep writing. However, if I'd been querying agents who didn't handle YA, I'd have classified it as literary or fantasy or horror.

In the end, I had some agents reject it because they felt some themes were too adult. I had some agents offer on it intending to submit both to adult and YA houses, and I ended up selling to a YA house (and am still hoping for some crossover readers).

At this point, with the queries in the mail, I wouldn't worry about how you classified it. Good luck!

Smiling Ted said:

I meant the latter, that it could go either way. Sorry if I was unclear.

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Oh, good.

I think it's all good. YA is an easier break-in market right now, according to everything I hear and read on the bloggy blog blogs.

Nothing at all stops you from now querying it to agents who don't rep YA. I think that's a good problem to have.

If an agent who reps both adult and YA requests it thinking it's YA, he/she can always accept it is adult fiction if it's more appropriate. If none of the YA agents bite, you can query agents who rep adult fantasy. You haven't made any mistakes; you've been offered an opportunity to broaden your net. What's not to like?