For those of you that are super unfamiliar with the writing process, let me briefly explain the typical publishing process. After you have deemed your manuscript near perfect, you query agents. This is basically where you ask them to represent your novel. If you are lucky enough to find an agent (not an easy task!!), they will try to find you a publisher. So now back to why I’m posting this: a while ago, when I was just starting to think about querying, I couldn’t figure out whether I should market my novel as young adult (YA) or adult. So I asked the question to my bookish friends and got quite a wide variety of answers. Hopefully they will be of help to you if you have ever wondered the same thing.
I wrote my novel as an adult fantasy. The content, to me, is very much adult. That being said, there are A LOT of YA novels nowadays that have quite graphic content, so it confused me. How does one know if their novel is adult or YA?
What the bookish friends said about querying:
“If the voice of the novel is young, it’s YA or new adult (NA)*… a lot of NA is shelved in the adult romance categories.”
*New adult is not really an official classification, but it’s that in between for adult and YA, and is often romance novels.
“If the narrator of your story is speaking in the present or looking back on the story events still as a teen, it’s probably YA or NA… You sometimes see books about kids as adult fiction, but in those cases most of the time it’s an adult narrator looking [back].”
“From what I’ve read YA has protagonists who are 13-17/18 years of age. And NA… the 18/19- mid 20s age group.”
“I think the genre YA has more to do with who you picture as your primary audience. Keep in mind that YA is targeting an audience up to 25 years old!”
“My understanding is that it’s really the age of the characters more than anything else that dictates [YA versus adult].”
“If your characters are teens and you can see it appealing to both adult and mature teen readers, query both. It’s called ‘crossover appeal’.”
“YA is more of a growing up/defining yourself journey, while adult is more introspective. A lot of it is straight up marketing though.”
What my takeaway is:
I think that the age of the protagonist and the content helps direct it to YA or adult, but at the end of the day it’s a marketing decision. Publishers don’t care about sex scenes and the fact that 10 year olds may be reading it if they feel like it is going to sell more as a YA book (I mean, we can all think of several YA books that have pretty steamy scenes!).
After reading that mix of opinions, what do you think determines a novel to be YA or adult?
A.S. Thornton has evolved from book blogger to author with a particular fondness for writing forbidden love in ancient deserts. When not writing, she’s caring for dogs and cats as a veterinarian. You’ll never find animals at the center of her writing, though, because those fictional worlds don’t have veterinarians and her literal brain can’t accept that the poor critters would be without parasite prevention. Thornton’s debut, DAUGHTER OF THE SALT KING is available wherever books are sold.
Tanya @ Girl Plus Books
To me it’s a combination of age + content. A younger MC doesn’t automatically equate to YA. One that comes to mind is All the Ugly and Wonderful Things. The main character is a child throughout most of the book but the content is decidedly adult.
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Ali
Yes that book is definitely adult!!
ShootingStarsMag
This can be a tough question. I don’t think it’s really about the age per se, because sometimes books about teens or early twenties are YA and sometimes they are adult. I do think a lot of it comes down to marketing, so yeah, if you think it could crossover, then I’d definitely query agents that represent both or change the query for those who represent adults and those who only focus on YA. 🙂
-Lauren
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Ali
Yeah, I agree – I think it’s such a marketing thing at the end of the day, and really how a book “feels.”
Julia
The balance between YA and Adult is very precarious and the boundaries are vague – I expect YA to have a younger audience in mind but have come across many YA books with more than a steamy scene or two. It’s a little off putting when that happens and remember wishing the book had been marketed differently.
Ali
Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head: The boundaries are VAGUE af! I don’t think it’s a black and white answer at all.
Cora @ Tea Party Princess
I think YA is 14/15-25, so there’s a huge amount of scope when it comes to the audience. I think it generally comes down to the age of the protagonist.
Cora | http://www.teapartyprincess.co.uk/
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Ali
I think age of protagonist plays a role, too!