What qualifies as YA?

Jo Zebedee said:
About 2 years older than your planned reader.
Click to expand...

Exactly. So for example, many 'middle grade' books (8-12yo market, give or take) have protagonists who are 11 or 12. With YA, it depends on the age group you're aiming for. Younger YA (sometimes called tween fiction) might have protagonists who are 14-16, and slightly simpler plotlines and will probably be slightly cleaner in terms of sex and swearing (though difficult themes appear from MG upwards, no need to shy away from those nowadays). So-called 'upper YA' will have protagonists who are 17 or 18, but no older than that.

The rule is, if your main POV character is old enough to be in college, it's not YA. :)

(It gets more complicated though, because not all books with teen protagonists are YA. There have to be clear teen themes, to do with identity and growing up, for it to fit the YA market.)
 
Now I think it is about 14 to 17, perhaps 18. It's variable. Dear Lord in heaven I've now heard a description of an upper YA classification. Oh yeah. How about 17 to 20 or thereabouts?! I kid you not. Just when I thought the next step up was New Adult. Gee, does that mean we have a lower YA?

BTW, I've been away, terminally ill for quite a spell. What happened to the blogs???
 
Triceratops said:
Now I think it is about 14 to 17, perhaps 18. It's variable. Dear Lord in heaven I've now heard a description of an upper YA classification. Oh yeah. How about 17 to 20 or thereabouts?! I kid you not. Just when I thought the next step up was New Adult. Gee, does that mean we have a lower YA?

BTW, I've been away, terminally ill for quite a spell. What happened to the blogs???
Click to expand...

Glad to see you back, Tri cx
 
Triceratops said:
BTW, I've been away, terminally ill for quite a spell. What happened to the blogs???
Click to expand...
Sorry to hear about your illness -- I trust you're a lot better now.

Re the blogs, Brian switched to a new version of the forum software several months back and the blogs were a casualty of the move. To quote his post from when it happened:

The blogs are in hibernation for the moment, as there isn't actually a blog platform for this latest version of the forum software. However, I know one is in development, and it will be supported - which is good, because the version we got was abandoned by its creator within a month of my buying and installing it here, so there's always been a danger of them failing even with a routine update.

This way, they've been put aside in a full backup on the server, ready to be brought back online as soon as the new blog platform is available for them. I'm guessing it'll take a few months yet, though, and I'd rather press on with making chrons more cutting edge than get left behind in the software development cycle. If that makes sense. :)
Click to expand...
 
The genre is often referred to now as 'Teen and Young Adult' so it does go past simply the teenage years. Most of the Teen/YA books I've seen span from 13 to low 20s, with 'New Adult' being a subset/expansion of YA targeting 18 to mid 20s and dealing with heaver topics or having higher maturity rating content.
 
I have found that being pigeon-holed as a YA book as my first book seems to be, each time I send it to a publisher seems to be making it harder to sell to them. As far as I am concerned, it is for everyone from 13 to 103. I would have thought that being a YA book would be a good thing at this moment in time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread starter Similar threads Forum Replies Date
Orcadian What is 'literature' and what SF qualifies? Book Discussion 201

Similar threads


Back
Top