Earlier this week, I asked about the limits in YA literature. Is there a line? And if so, where is it?
St. Martins’ Press may have the answer. Late last year, they ran a contest in conjunction with #YAlitchat founder, Georgia McBride, to find some New Adult, or NA, titles. From McBride’s blog:
We are actively looking for great, new, cutting edge fiction with protagonists who are slightly older than YA and can appeal to an adult audience. Since twenty-somethings are devouring YA, St. Martin’s Press is seeking fiction similar to YA that can be published and marketed as adult—a sort of an “older YA” or “new adult.” (Submissions can be read here; winners were announced last night.)
New adult literature isn’t exactly, well, new. In The Guardian of Education, an early 19th century journal dedicated to reviewing children’s literature, Sarah Trimmer defined “Books for Young Persons” as books for readers 14-21, while the term YA was coined in 1937. But despite its early roots, publishers didn’t truly begin marketing to a younger audience until the fifties and sixties (Maureen Daly’s Seventeenth Summer and S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders were two of the first real YA novels, though they were released 26 years apart ). Until then, children and teens selected books from an adult pool, though certain titles appealed more than others (Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables series are good examples).
Sometime in the 1980s, young adult literature came into its own. Come the 1990s, children’s books had been divided into several categories – picture book, early reader, reluctant reader, chapter book, middle grade. The past couple of years have seen YA split into early teen/tween fiction and a catch-all 14 or so and up category. According to St. Martin’s Associate Editor, S.Jae Jones (JJ), NA fiction would be the upper end of YA, pitched at readers 18 to twenty-something.
Although NA may be part marketing ploy, I think this evolution of the genre is inevitable. Though books like Anne of Green Gables and Little Women are still incredibly popular (Little Women has never been out of print), YA literature with a more realistic, true-to-life bent (think Nancy Werlin’s The Rules of Survival) is much in demand. NA gives St. Martin’s and, hopefully, other houses, the chance to revel in the complexity of publishing for young adults.
Earlier this week, I wrote about Knopf’s decision to categorize Margo Lanagan’s Tender Morsels as YA. But sticking TM in with YA (oh, god, I’m writing in LOLspeak) is a gross over-simplification of not just the book, but of teen readers. Not all teens will be ready for the cloaked realities in Lanagan’s novel; conversely, some teens will read, dissect, and discuss the book without hesitation. Creating an upper category like NA helps readers find the books they’re ready for without drawing undue attention from younger readers.
NA also straddles another YA issue – the crossover title. For the past few years, some publishers have been marketing books (TM, Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, and Marcus Zusak’s The Book Thief come to mind) as both adult and young adult, marking the different editions with different cover art. Will the creation of New Adult fiction do away with the crossover title? Possibly. Publishers everywhere are trying to cut costs–no longer able to afford slush readers, most houses are now agent-query only. Cover production isn’t cheap (especially if you’re Bloomsbury). NA gives publishers the chance to put out just one cover yet still reach the desired crossover audience.
Of course, NA is unlikely to mean an uptick in acquisitions–there’s a lot of higher level and crossover YA already out there, and that’s just the already published stuff. Even closed to unsolicited submissions, most houses appear to be swimming in material. Yet “unlikely” does not equal “not at all” – though adults are reading YA, picking up a “kids’ book” still carries a stigma for some. Several of my twenty-something friends look down on the YA titles cluttering my bookshelves, claiming to be “past all that stuff”. But, as JJ points out,
Dan [Weiss, publisher-at-large at St. Martin’s] and I think there is a gap in the current adult market–the literary fiction market–for fiction about twentysomethings. You never stop growing up, I think, but little in the market seems to address the coming-of-age that also happens in your 20s. This is the time of life when you are an actual, legal adult, but just because you’re able to vote (in the US, anyway) that doesn’t mean you know HOW to be one. This is the first time when you are building a life that is your OWN, away from your parents and the family that raised you. It’s a strange and scary place to be.
Just as YA is fiction about discovering who you are as a person, I think NA is fiction about building your own life.
As older, snootier readers discover the joy of upper level YA–ahem, NA–demand may increase. This, in turn, would give writers the chance to explore the freedom of a slightly older protagonist while also easing some of the logistical aspects of writing YA (Would a parent really let their 15 year old hunt Daleks? Does this happen while she’s in school/at camp/over the summer? How could he afford x and y?)
Early twenties protagonists are surprisingly rare; in a panel on YA literature at Harvard’s 2008 Vericon, City of Bones author Cassandra Clare talked about pitching her novel, then about twentysomethings, as adult fiction. After several conversations, Clare realized she had to choose between adults and teens. She went with teens.
Will New Adult take off? I hope so. Last night, the winners of St. Martin’s New Adult contest were announced on #YAlitchat (there’s more on JJ’s blog). For most books, it’s at least 2 years between acquisition and release, meaning it could be a while before an NA section pops up in Barnes & Noble (unless St. Martin’s digs through its YA catalog to get the ball rolling). In the meantime, I think I’ll be loaning my upper YA books as NA…
Would you buy New Adult books? Does the title appeal to you/sound better than YA? Or are you happy with the system as it stands?
Photo Credit: Juliaf, via sxc.hu
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- Market Bound – Limits in YA Literature « *Insert Literary Blog Name Here* - [...] a little more about TM as YA in today’s post, New Adult Fiction – Beyond the Limits of YA, ...
- Dystopias: YA Fad, or Here to Stay? | *Insert Literary Blog Name Here* - [...] of the time. Granted, this could be because YA readers grow up to become adult lit readers (via NA ...
- The Mad Editor’s Round-Up #16 | Diary of a Mad Editor - [...] Jinnath Andersen presents New Adult Fiction – Beyond the Limits of YA, or Just New Packaging? posted at *Insert ...
- rrsmythe - RT @PetaAndersen: New Adult Fiction - Beyond the Limits of YA, or Just New Packaging? http://ow.ly/13Mvs
- Twentysomethings In Fiction | TS Brookhouse's Meta Rants on Writing - [...] I found this article — which is the most hopeful thing I came across and makes some of the ...
- manic panic « up from under - [...] not going to say that what I’m writing is YA, per se, but it may be “new adult.” It’s ...
- Kathleen A. Ryan - "New Adult" Fiction explained ~ here: http://j.mp/i6RNkT & here: http://j.mp/fMzGNJ #writing
- Maryanne Fantalis - Interesting! What do you think? RT @PetaAndersen: New Adult Fiction - Beyond the Limits of YA, or Just New Packaging? ...
- Rebecca Odum - Interesting blog on New Adult fiction: http://t.co/OAlTTBI
New Adult Fiction – Beyond the Limits of YA, or Just New Packaging? http://goo.gl/fb/AueT #writing #myblogReply – Quote
One thing that annoys me about the term NA is that it doesn’t seem like something different from YA – aren’t young adults also new adults (actually the problem is that we’re calling 14yo kids adults in the term YA)?
@Joe – I’m not sure it really is different from YA. I think that, to some degree, is the beauty of it. Sectioning YA makes it more accessible – older readers may be drawn to it, older teens will have a selection aimed specifically to their tastes. Younger teens ready for older books will also be able to browse NA while those not ready for it can stick to YA. It’s sort of like splitting up Crime and Mystery – it makes it easier for readers to find exactly what they’re looking for.
Defining YA as 14+ may be a misnomer, especially in the US, where the voting age is 18, the drinking age 21. Historically, though, kids were forced to grow up faster, and I think that’s stuck. And honestly, what else would you call a 14 year old without infantilising or offending them? They really are stuck between “childhood” and “adulthood”. “Young adult” seems appropriate. Perhaps the issue isn’t so much that we’re putting 14 year olds in YA as that we’re including 17+ up, the age most kids are graduating/about to graduate.
YA or New Adult? Help us figure it all out as we create a New Adult space on our mezzanine this weekend: http://ow.ly/13MvsReply – Quote
nice run-through on the history of YA.
the interesting thing about “tender morsels” also brings up the problem with an international title. i had the opportunity to hear her speak about this issue last summer and she pointed out that in both england and her native australia it is considered more “new adult” with a target market of 19 and up. random house’s decision to call it YA in the US meant it would be presented as being 14 and up, which is not really appropriate.
US publishers and chain booksellers don’t necessarily want to break YA up into these “young” and “new” distinctions because it fractures their marketing efforts and would beg the admission that much of what they push on a younger audience might be inappropriate. if there’s one thing stubborn teens share with publishers is the mutual hatred of being told what is or isn’t appropriate for their age.
to that end, i don’t think NA will take off *unless* the large chains and online retailers agree to take it on as a category.
@david e – How funny, I was just about to head over to fomagrams!
I am Australian, and that’s pretty common. For us, The Book Thief was markets as adult with the understanding that upper YA readers might appreciate it too; I think (though I’m not certain) the later YA promotion came after the US categorization. It was certainly true when I was a kid, too–I read up a lot, with books from the adult section of the library and bookstore, though a lot of the novels were upper YA appropriate.
What was the talk like?
yes, i remember the same thing happening with “the book theif.”
the problem here in the US is that publishers have a hard time with upper YA because teen readers are notorious for dropping out of sight. as a tactical business decision they would rather hope to catch the younger YA readers with an older book and take the intended audience as gravy.
ms. lanagan was disarmingly charming. she spoke to a group of children’s writers at vermont college (i was in attendance at the time) and she had an audience – some of whom were hostile because they felt TM was inappropriate for children – eating out of her hand by the end. she spoke mostly about the process of writing TM and her thinking while writing it. i can’t say that when i had the chance that i was particularly articulate when speaking with her, but she did make a prediction about my final semester in school which proved accurate.
@Joe –
I have to agree with Joe. When did 14yo stop being teens? As a 19yo, there’s not much for me out there. I have a choice between novels with a 17yo protagonist or a 30-something protagonist.I’m over high school. But I don’t have a career, husband, or kids yet. I’d buy NA fiction, but publishers could save themselves a lot of trouble by reverting to the old childrens/teens/young adult categories. Books are like clothes: if you can’t find what you really want, you settle for what you can get. And it’s about time publishers starting giving us what we really want instead of dictating what we can have.
Sadly, most YA is teeny-bopper fiction. The genre has been co-opted by the chik-lit crowd as surely as Global Warming by the left. I think climate change might just affect us all. If YA is going to survive as something other than angst-ridden, preteen dating sagas, it will be in the NA market where a boy can still be a man.
Interesting discussion. I’m coming at the problem from the other direction. I’ve written three novel manuscripts with late-teen early-twenties protagonists. I am not comfortable with marketing these stories as YA. I’m trying to figure out if thisshould be marketed as adult fiction or as new adult.
I’m pleased to see readers are interested in this type of fiction. I believe some of our most important decisions are made as new adults.
so my question isn’t YA or new adult but new adult or adult.