Twenty-Thirteen (or Predicting the Future)

Tip of the Day: Read about Kate's 2013 goals here, and Tina's 2012 recap here.

Happy 2013, readers!

In my library world and writing life, I'm constantly thinking about...(read with a booming voice)... *The Future of Books and Reading.*

So what topics are occupying my mind? Probably the same ones that many of our readers are thinking about, namely:

1. Ebook sales to libraries. Will *all* publishers soon allow libraries to purchase and lend their ebooks? I hope so! Right now it looks to patrons like libraries are lagging behind in ebook purchases when in reality it is the publishers who have not yet decided how to sell these books. I can't wait for this perception and reality to change.

2. Ebook lending on OverDrive. Right now OverDrive, my library system's lending platform, does not allow all self-published books to be sold through OD to libraries so we can lend them to patrons. I'm not sure what the cost to OD is to "stock" books for libraries to purchase, but I know that as the YA Librarian I would love to be able to puchase and lend self-pubbed YA titles. Right now authors must apply to OD to sell their books and they can be rejected. I'm not sure why and I hope this changes.

3. New YA lines. Merit Press, Soho Teen, Entangled Teen, Spencer Hill Press, Month9Books, Strange Chemistry, Poisoned Pencil, Algonquin Teen.... Hopefully this list will continue to grow! I love having more options of lines to buy from for my library. I also love having more publishers that may be interested in reading my work! But with the popularity of YA fiction, will even more writers be submitting to these publishers, still making it hard to get noticed in a glutted market? I know good writing trumps all, but the reality is that pubs can only release so many books per season. Time will tell....

4. New YA agents. It seems that Chuck Sambuchino's Guide to Literary Agents Blog regularly posts new agents hunting for authors to rep, and many of them rep YA fiction. Yay! I'm so glad there are pros in the field who love YA fiction as much as I do. But when I look more closely I see that many of them do NOT rep MG fiction, which I also write...and some may actually be better agents for adult fiction and are only hoping to score a YA author since that is a hot seller now. OK, so I might be reading too much into agent interests, but it's hard for an MG/YA author to find the right agents to query for this reason.

5. New Adult: the "genre." This December 14 Publishers Weekly article on the "New Adult" label made the rounds last month and sparked many discussions about the topic on both writing boards and YA Librarian lists I belong to. I plan on giving my thoughts on this in more detail in another post, but for now I will say I am a) excited that books targeted to 18-24-year-olds are gaining momentum because it is a gap that needs filling, and b) I've always wanted to write stories featuring MCs of those ages so I like that the market is opening for them.

Thoughts on any of the (5) topics above?

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing

Ready Writer One! (or Alex Awards: The ALA's New Adult?)

Tip of the Day: Three of the Author2Author Misses have birthdays within the month! Wish Emily and Kristina a great year of writing! (Oh, and I'm number three. :))

I was thinking about Kristina's post from last Thursday on the New Adult genre and how I see an audience for these books at my library -- among my own staff.

There are a lot of young-twenty-somethings working part-time at the library, either college grads deciding what to do for careers, grad students finishing their programs with the hopes of soon finding full-time jobs, or those who are content to work multiple part-time jobs because they fit into their lifestyles. These young men and women are often single, dating, breaking out of long-term relationships, starting new serious relationships, or figuring out if they ever want to get married/have families.

In other words, they are way beyond relating to high school drama, but not yet relating to the world of careers, marriage, children, aged parents, home owning, etc. And I know they often want to find entertaining fiction to read that they can relate to.

I will definitely recommend some of the ebooks that are becoming popular in this genre, but also ironically, one of the most fitting books I've seen fit the bill in a while is a futuristic sci-fi: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

I LOVE THIS BOOK!

Did I shout it loud enough?

!!!I LOVE THIS BOOK!!!

It is funny, witty, has great 80s pop culture references, a virtual reality world, a treasure hunt, puzzles to solve, and a character who ages from high school to his young twenties, trying to figure out what to do with his life/who to trust.

It made the 2011 Alex Award List (ALA's list of books published for adults that will appeal to teens), which is what made me pick it up, and I have recommended it to many readers who have all loved it too -- teen boys, "new adult" guys, adult librarian women, my 35-year-old husband, and my 29-year-old brother -- which is to say that eeven if a book is pubbed as "new adult," it will find a wider audience.

So, two things to take away from this post: 1) try your hand at reading and writing a new adult if the urge strikes, despite what the market may say, and 2) read READY PLAYER ONE before it comes out as a movie. You won't be disappointed.

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing

If It's on Wikepedia then...

Tip of the Day: Add my forthcoming book, THE PAPARAZZI PROJECT to your "to-read" list on Goodreads.

It must exist! Ok, something rather cool popped up on Wikepedia this week. An entry for New-Adult Fiction. Maybe you've heard the term tossed around between your cool author friends and wondered what the heck is New-Adult? I know I did the first time I heard it. According to Wikipedia:

"New-adult Fiction or post-adolescent literature is a recent category of fiction for young adults first proposed by St. Martin's Press in 2009.^[1] St. Martin’s Press editors wanted to address the coming-of-age that also happens in a young person’s twenties. They wanted to consider stories about young adults who were legally adults, but who were still finding their way in building a life and figuring out what it means to be an adult.^[2]"

I remember a time, not terribly long ago (about 2006), when I was querying agents with a book about a college freshman and was told several times that no one would ever buy a book with a main character of that age. That I either had to jack up the ages of my characters and make it an adult book or lower the ages and make it a young adult. I'll tell you that I made the characters younger and went along with what I was being told. But I often wondered, why don't people want to read about characters in college? What do the readers who feel young adult books are too young for them (and I don't know what age this happens at as I've yet to reach it myself) and don't want to read adult books read?

And finally there is a genre! New Adult is getting increasingly popular with stand-out self pubbers like Jessica Park and Jamie McGuire.

  

And you may have noticed that traditional publishers have taken notice of these NA self-pubbers and are snapping up their books left and right.  

And finally Wikepedia has given the genre their own entry!

What do you guys think about New-Adult Fiction? Would you read it? Would you give writing it a try?

Kristina, Miss Author in Action