What age category best fits my novel?

coffeehunter said:

Good to know, and yeah, comparing to Ender's Game, Ender's Game sound like an adult talking to the reader while my book sounds like the child MC POV talking to the reader. It's funny at times, serious in others, and the reader really knows what's going on inside of him.

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MG and YA are two different categories.

Ender is an adult sci-fi and, as pointed out, a bad thing to use as any kind of comparison, as it's more than 30 years old.

Cornflake's advice is reflecting what agents like to see in query letters. Usually, blockbuster comparisons and/or decades old comparisons aren't useful for agents in terms of where to position your novel to publishers. There are exceptions--if an agent really wants to see an "updated" Ender's Game for example, it might be appropriate.

But querying isn't really something you need to worry about at this juncture, if at all (comps aren't a requirement for querying, just a bonus).

coffeehunter said:

You might want to read Card's latest of the Ender's series called Children of the Fleet (2017). Different character, same manipulation of a child into an adult role. Also Ender's Game released as a movie not even two years ago, and the book is selling still at stores. His series didn't end 30 years ago; it's still going. Look to what's selling for inspiration. Children of the Fleet is being talked about becoming a movie soon, too. I may say Ender's Game, but I'm referring to the series that's still going and selling, and of course, you start at book 1 usually when you read from a series. Though Children of the Fleet is a standalone book in the same universe. If I compare with that book instead, it's still the same comparison to Ender's Game give or take, so it's easier referring to a book that old time writers are more familiar with than a 2017 title. I still need to finish that one. It's excellent so far!

If people say Ender's Game is outdated, they're clearly not up to date with the series up to 2017. It makes the older books still pretty relevant to know what's happening. But it was a good idea he did a standalone book in the same universe.

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I loved Ender's Game when I was a kid (and some of the others), but I'm not giving Card a dime at this point, thanks, and you'd be wise to not reference him at all in any query, lest you put agents off based on that.

The movie was released five years ago (I checked because I remembered that mess existing, but it seemed a while ago), but that's got nothing to do with anything. People release, and re-release movies and tv shows based on older books, but that's got nothing to do with the relevance of the books themselves to the current writing market.

The problem with your using Ender as a comparison is that it's NOT CURRENT and if you want to pitch a book in the current market, you need to know that market.

The movies of Lord of the Rings didn't come out all that long ago, and god knows the series is beloved, but that doesn't mean someone who is writing a Tolkien-like book is going to be able to sell it TODAY. Go ahead and query an absolutely massive thing with endless plodding worldbuilding and actual plodding, wherein you describe people walking for chapters on end, and see where it gets you. Things that were published a long time ago are not relevant to today's market, and writers looking to trade publish need to know the market they wish to enter.

Same as you have to know what category you're writing before you query agents, because you have to know WHAT AGENTS to query. You keep saying an agent can have the decision, but if it's a YA thing you send to agents who don't rep YA, you're getting rejected.

cornflake said:

The problem with your using Ender as a comparison is that it's NOT CURRENT and if you want to pitch a book in the current market, you need to know that market. Things that were published a long time ago are not relevant to today's market, and writers looking to trade publish need to know the market they wish to enter.

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This is a thing I saw before on another thread in AW, and I don't understand it. If the books are still published and sold, in several countries, now and for the latest 100+years, it means they are interesting, immortal and they are still read, so... what's wrong with comparing with classics? So what if it isn't current? If people don't write it now, but the genre is liked and read... I am going to write it and give them more stories in the style of Alexandre Dumas or Raffael Sabbatini! (Yes, the literary critics compared my first 2 novels with them, as well as with less known classical authors of historical adventures for teens).

Well, for one thing, it's usually not true, and therefore not useful. Take a random sampling of, say, 50 *unpublished* fantasy novels that use Tolkien as their comp, and I would bet £100 that every single one is absolutely not comparable. Agents get a lot of ccrackpot queries from writers who really think they will outsell the bible (that's a literal example ) when realistically, most won't sell at all, let alone earn out their advance, let alone take the planet by storm and change the face of literature forever.

It's also not something agents can bank on. Maybe Harry Potter really is a stellar comp for your novel, but that isn't necessarily helpful to you; HP has the market cornered. It's more about what kind of market or demographic a book is targeting, what readers it will appeal to, how much of the story is fresh or derivative, how over saturated or whatever stuff is.

What reviewers say about a book after it has been publishrd is sort of its own different world.

There are books where the best comp would be something old, or famous, or classic, but they tend to be rare. I think again, t comes down to street cred. If your agent or publisher says, THIS AUTHOR IS THE NEXT BRONTE then that's cool, they would probably knkw. I'm not sure we can really say that about ourselves, though. It's a big claim.

Elenitsa said:

This is a thing I saw before on another thread in AW, and I don't understand it. If the books are still published and sold, in several countries, now and for the latest 100+years, it means they are interesting, immortal and they are still read, so... what's wrong with comparing with classics? So what if it isn't current? If people don't write it now, but the genre is liked and read... I am going to write it and give them more stories in the style of Alexandre Dumas or Raffael Sabbatini! (Yes, the literary critics compared my first 2 novels with them, as well as with less known classical authors of historical adventures for teens).

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There are a bunch of things involved in this.

-- Just because something is still read and sold doesn't necessarily mean it's popular, especially with the target audience. I'd wager a shitton of copies of Catcher in the Rye, Tess of the D'urbervilles, The Scarlet Letter, etc., are sold to people who have 0 interest in them outside of the assignment the people who buy them are reading them for.

-- Even if everyone reading classics is doing so because they love them (which obviously isn't the case but if it were), that doesn't mean the same thing would sell if it were newly marketed today. There're all sorts of things wrapped up in people loving classic stuff, not the least of which is nostalgia. Like, the 80s movie Overboard is loved by many. It airs all the freaking time. However, when they went to remake it, they had to change things so it wasn't about a guy basically kidnapping a gaslighting a woman with no plans to do anything but keep her as a slave. If someone pitched the original today, it'd not get made. Someone saying your published thing reminds them of old work they love is a compliment, but it doesn't mean that's where people should start writing, with that idea.

If someone tried to shop the equivalent to LotR today, they'd have a problem. Not because people don't genuinely love LotR, but because it's a thing unto itself and another book now that tried for 100 pages of walking isn't what most readers want. Even if they want it in the form they read as kids, because....

-- Classics are often classics for a reason. Most people, I dare say, aren't Tolkein. Most people aren't a Bronte sister. The combination of writing talent, storytelling, inventiveness, etc., that combined to make the books we now consider classics stand out among the thousands of books of the same era isn't easy to reproduce. It's also kind of uncouth to have the hubris to compare yourself to someone of such renown.

-- In a query and construction sense, if you don't know the current market, you're likely in trouble. Yes, it's possible you're the rare person who writes something no one has written for a long time, very well, but using non-current works as comparisons just signals you may have no idea what's currently selling, to editors or readers. You might say, 'it doesn't matter what's currently selling, because people love LotR and...' except first, see the point above, second, the GENERAL population of readers' tastes change over time. This is reflected in what sells today. If you're writing a YA novel but haven't read one published in the last couple decades, you probably don't know what CURRENT readers of the genre expect, in terms of voice, content, etc. You also don't know what's been done to death. If the last book you read was Hunger Games, you might think 'oh, a dystopian world but with...' and then wonder why you can't get anyone interested in it (because dystopian is dead atm; it got beyond saturated).

Agents won't love it if it's a saturated or recently-saturated genre or trope, they'll just pass, because editors don't want it, even if it's good, because they've decided not to chance any more for the forseeable future. It's a business.

Writing to 'I know some people who love LotR and want more just like it,' or 'I love the florid prose and endless said bookisms of 100 years ago and people still buy the Bronte sister's stuff' is fine if you just want to write it, but not if you expect to sell it in the current marketplace.