Is YA contemporary Dying

spikeman4444 said:

My agent seems to think there is a shift away from contemporary YA. I couldn't disagree more.

Your thoughts??

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I would hardly argue with your agent, but contemporary YA is the best it's ever been and teens are buying it like crazy.

Kjbartolotta said:

I would hardly argue with your agent, but contemporary YA is the best it's ever been and teens are buying it like crazy.

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Sometimes when something is really popular at the moment, it's a sign that the market will likely be saturated in a year or two. Or it means that agents are getting deluged by novels within that subgenre or category. Agents are attempting to assess what a novel's sales potential will be down the road, after all, since the whole process of shopping one and editing it and getting it out in the world takes a year or two (and that's if the novel is already written and as polished as the writer and agent can get it).

I can't read their mind, obviously, but maybe this is the agent's concern.

Note that this would not mean that the genre is dying (indeed, the popularity could go on for years, or even indefinitely), just that it is rather crowded and it will be harder for a new novel or author to stand out and establish a niche within it.

It seems like one of the biggest challenges facing new authors is threading that needle between writing in a category or subgenre that is so obscure that no one knows how to pitch the book or which works to compare it to and which readership to target, versus gaining a toehold in one that is so wildly popular that a new book will be a drop in a vast ocean.

YA tackling race, gender, sexuality, and poverty seems to be well-received right, I'm hoping this turns out to be not a trend, but just something teens are into reading. Frankly, the SFF fantasy YA right now is what feels a little stale and I could less of.

spikeman4444 said:

My agent seems to think there is a shift away from contemporary YA. I couldn't disagree more.

Your thoughts??

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Why do you disagree?

If people are buying stuff now, that can indicate it's on a downswing.

Agents can be wary of acquiring new books in a genre they think may be approaching saturation, even though there will always be people reading those books. It can be hard for a new writer to elbow their way into a demographic that is dominated by a number of well-known authors already. There will always be some who manage to do so, but it's a question of the odds.

A crude comparison might be if you wanted to come up with a new kind of soft drink. People still drink soft drinks, some in prodigious quantities. In spite of all the backlash, soft drink companies make billions of dollars each year. But their market isn't expanding as fast as it once was for all kinds of reasons, and if you want to break into the soft drink market, you probably have to woo some customers away from their current favorite brands. Or you need to come up with a soft drink that is significantly different from the ones out there already, so you can attract new customers who don't tend to like soft drinks that are currently available.

So if you have a formula for a new kind of soda, and it's really tasty, it might still be hard to convince a bank to give you a loan to produce and market it yourself, or to convince an existing distributor or manufacturer of beverages to take it on, unless it's different enough in some way that they think it could appeal to a completely new group of customers and make soda drinkers of them. It's not impossible, but it will be more challenging than it might have been back in the days when soda pop was new and shiny and was just starting to catch on.

YA contemporary will never go away. It's always been there, and "contemporary" is also a very broad category. The subcategory of YA contemporary that focuses on social or political issues is in full swing right now and therefore may be on the downswing soon. I'd like to think that its relevance will keep it popular, but things tend to come in waves. For a while, YA dystopian fiction was huge, and then people got sick of it, and now it's a punchline (though of course some people still read and enjoy it). Maybe it'll get a resurgence at some point.

The Otter said:

YA contemporary will never go away. It's always been there, and "contemporary" is also a very broad category.

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Quite right. Interest in particular contemporary issues will wax and wane, but never contempo as a whole. There's always some new issue that gets a lot of interest.

The trick we as writers must achieve is to ignore what's current this instant and focus on the story we desperately want to tell, so that we craft a story that is the very best we can create. THAT is what will capture agents and editors and the hearts of readers.

Did your agent say what the shift was toward? What editors are asking for now? The bestseller lists and deal announcements have been dominated by contemporary and fantasy for a while, so I'd be interested to know.

I have heard that "quiet" contemp isn't selling; books need to have a high concept, whatever that means in the contemporary context. I agree with Sage and The Otter that contemp will never disappear. It has dominated YA library shelves since the '70s for a reason. Kids like to explore their contemporary social reality through fiction. (So do adults; things like "chick lit" may come and go, but fiction in a contemporary setting isn't going to go away.) But, as Roxxsmom says, over-saturation is an issue, and things wax and wane.

I think the reason there might seem to be a shift away from YA is because there aren't as many titles so far ahead of any others in the field. There aren't any sensations like Twilight, Hunger Games, any number of the Harry Potter likeness stories, so while the industry seems to be afloat well in the YA genre, there aren't any shining beacons to act as the prow for the ship.
Besides, don't take this as an indicator to chase a trend. 1. By the time you finish a book and get it published [if you're lucky to be at that point], what trend you chased has come and gone. Tripe and repeated advice for sure, but write what you want, as best you can.

I recently participated in an "agent day" event and pretty much all the agents said YA market is saturated right now. Publishers bought a lot of YA titles a year or more ago and they are being released, but not bought.

Of course they're being bought. YA's not a genre, it's a sales category, so while they've filled their current years' lists, they've still got to buy titles for future releases. It's not like imprints like Harper Teen are going to give up on teen novels.

Great gooks will sell regardless of trends in buying.

I don't think YA Contemporary is dying. I'm seeing a lot of ownvoices contemporary being published so its still pretty much alive. It's just changing and adapting though.