using adult to get into the YA market?

reenkam · Jul 31, 2007

Has anyone considered writing an adult novel and attempting to publish it just to get into the YA market? There are fewer YA agents out there, and fewer publishers, and the readership is smaller, and the chance of being a hit is smaller, etc. etc. Do you think it would be bad to write an adult novel just to see if you could get published that way and have some publishing credits to land a good YA agent/publisher?

giftedrhonda · Jul 31, 2007

I never considered it that way. Writing for adults and writing for YA are different...I don't see that writing for adults is really any easier than writing YA, but that's just me...

Rhonda, who writes both

rugcat · Jul 31, 2007

giftedrhonda said:
I never considered it that way. Writing for adults and writing for YA are different...I don't see that writing for adults is really any easier than writing YA, but that's just me...

Rhonda, who writes both

Just because you can write for adults doesn't mean you can write YA, and vice-versa. Some can, some can't.

reenkam · Jul 31, 2007

Yeah, I definitely agree that there's a difference. I usually write YA, but I have a few ideas that I could write for adult. There's no saying if they'd be good or anything, but maybe. I was just wondering because there are more agents for adult out there. Of course, it's not any easier to get one in the long run, since there are more adult writers, too.....maybe I've answered my own question...

bethany · Jul 31, 2007

Write what you love to write.

An agent who reps adult stuff may suck with YA anyway, and then, if your love is YA, you're still without the contacts you need. And adult books tend to be longer, so more time involved in the writing.

If you want to follow the market maybe write a MG boy book, I hear they are always looking for those, and hey, MG's are at least short, you could write two MG's in the time it took to write one adult book.

But again, there are probably fewer agents repping MG than YA, so your pool is small, but not microscopic. Just looking at the deals on publisher's Marketplace it seems like tons of agents are selling YA, and at my own agency I can think of 6 or 7 agents who rep it.

reenkam · Jul 31, 2007

Good point, bethany. I was thinking about using one of my YA ideas and making it MG. I have no idea if that's going to work, but I'll try it out. You're right, though...there probably are even less MG agents out there. But maybe if I wrote something for boys? I'll give it a try...

Thanks for the responses!

using adult to get into the YA market?

reenkam

aka cupcake

giftedrhonda

Gifted Goofball

rugcat

Lost in the Fog

reenkam

aka cupcake

bethany

:)

reenkam

aka cupcake