How to figure out my novel's audience?

Hello,

This is my first post. I am a big reader (everything literary and non-fiction, but not so much fantasy/SF) and have been writing since I was a child. I am now in my 20s and writing my first real novel, meaning: the first novelistic project that actually went beyond 60 pages and that I absolutely, unconditionally intend to finish because the story grips me to the soul since I have been brewing it in my head for the last 5 years. I have been writing for a year now but with a 4 months hiatus in the Fall due to studies that have now ended. I can now concentrate on this writing business for the rest of my life (while working full-time)!

Since I have a specific question to ask, I will try to put out the synopsis of my novel for you: the main character is an adolescent girl who is sent to live out-of-town with her extended family. She is sent there because she had problems in school and has to change school. In her new town, she discovers two friends, one male the other female, with their own stories of why they were sent to this school which is itself very peculiar, much like an alternative underground educational establishment.

She also meets the locals who have very special stories to recount about the town and my main character's family which harbors a secret about one of its member. As she discovers more on that family member, my protagonist goes on a search for more family stories across town and discovers a keepsake that was left after the family member disappeared.

She goes to search for her relative and to find her own mission in life that was revealed when she found the keepsake. She discovers more about the significance of the keepsake, more about her relative's special relationship to herself and also that she has to abandon childhood behind in order to achieve something of value. She also has to forsake love in the process.

The novel is about how to grow up odd and broken and still become someone good, how mentorship can help us become who we are, how family secrets can break us or make us grow, how we must part with childhood at some point and how nature transforms our outlook on life and our place on this planet.

Ooof...

My question: I am not sure if my novel is adolescent literature or adult literature. The main protagonist and two secondary characters are adolescents. There are adolescent themes involved. However, some issues are more existential and deal with the end of childhood, being accomplished as an adult as well as having certain adult characters being developed. The writing is definitely of literary quality, almost flowery but not arrogant.

Obviously, knowing which audience my novel is for will be important when I query. How do I figure it out?

Thanks,

Julia

Thanks a million for your appropriate comments. I think my novel's audience is adult if I look at the language used (researched and literary), the themes (certain realizations we usually have when we grow up to be an adult) and length (it is to be approximately 260 pages).

I can't provide an excerpt right now because the novel is being written in French. Who knows? Maybe it will be translated at some point.

Thank you ElaraSophia,

as a matter of fact ,where I live there is no set word limits for novels. However, novels under 120 pages might be turned down or publishers could ask the book to be beefed up by the author. Right now, from visiting bookstores, slim novels that are under 200 pages are very popular except for historical romances which are very thick at over 400 pages. I don't have an exact word count for my novel right now because I write long hand. I will transfer it on the computer during the second draft. However, based on what I have written and my outline, it should be what you said: 250 words per page for a total of about 65,000 words. And I know it's not going to be a problem.

In Quebec (where I live), the market is very small (6 million people in French, 1 million English), except if your book is bought by French-speaking and other markets overseas. It can also be translated into English for the Rest of Canada (English Canada) if it is popular locally. You simply cannot, unless you become hugely famous and other markets buy your books, make a living writing fiction in Quebec.

The reality of the local market means that there are no agents. You just query directly to a publisher. I probably don't need a software to remember whom I will be querying because there are less than 20 places I can query for my type of fiction.

It seems to me the whole business, while still being a business, is not as commercial as it is in the States. Three thousand copies sold is a best-seller, here. Publishers don't spend the kind of money american publishers spend on covers. They are often very unattractive with a white cover and some abstract painting on it! Same thing it seems in France, the book is a cultural object. In the States, it is a commercial object. So, basically, no agents, no word limits, no contract stating you have to write a serie or you're out, probably no full-time career writing only fiction, a very small market unless bought somewhere else. There are advantages and disadvantages!

I’d say, as writers, we better think of our books as cultural objects first and foremost. Don’t we want to subsist or just be read and forgotten? It’s unfortunate when publishing is commercially oriented but, there are other agents and publishers to choose from and if we are patient, I think we can find something that suits a literary orientation.

Anyone has seen the beautiful documentary “Stone Reader”? It’s about a man’s quest to find the author of one of his favourite book which is entirely forgotten.

As for my manuscript, I think I’ll have to uncover some teenage readers. I am surrounded with grown-ups! Thinking about it and rereading parts, it is entirely possible that my story is a “middle-ground” one, appealing to both late teenagers and adults.

Thank you all for your responses!

Thanks Dave, you are entirely right. Actually, everything that happens in Quebec is completely different from anywhere else on Earth! Ah, well...