Different distribution for YA?

[HareBrain]

A friend with a medium-sized publisher told me a while ago that this publisher didn't accept YA submission because YA has "a different distribution system" to adult. Does anyone know if that's true, and in what way? It seemed really odd, but that was all my friend knew (or had heard).

 

[Jo Zebedee]

A friend with a medium-sized publisher told me a while ago that this publisher didn't accept YA submission because YA has "a different distribution system" to adult. Does anyone know if that's true, and in what way? It seemed really odd, but that was all my friend knew (or had heard).

Nope. Distribution is standard. It’s just the way books get to shops

 

[Culhwch]

Could they mean quota of print verse digital? I would hazard a guess that YA print runs might be larger percentage-wise than adult fiction, where digital could have a bigger footprint. Might mean the difference to a medium-sized publisher. Purely speculative, mind, I know next to nothing about the industry!

 

[HareBrain]

The impression I got was that the publisher would need a whole different set-up and the effort wasn't worth their while. It doesn't make sense to me either. I shall quiz my friend further next time I see her.

 

[aThenian]

Maybe they mean it's a different genre/section of the bookstore. So they would be marketing to different buyers for a different audience.

 

[picklematrix]

Maybe they were referring to the need to recalibrate printers for larger font size. Most YA books I've read in physical form have thicker paper and larger font.
Perhaps other people know more about that though. Not sure if that's an industry standard or not.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I think YA might depend more on library sales (both public libraries and school libraries) than books for adults do, and that, in turn, would lead to a greater percentage of hardback or trade editions, but to what extent either of those would change the system of distribution I am not sure, and it doesn't seem like it would require a whole different set-up. But these are just guesses.

 

[EJDeBrun]

Such an odd statement, but it's possible that rather than "different distribution" system, they just might not have the staff and connections to launch YA books into the market? Because while the actual physical distribution of the books is the same, how one book gets pulled in anyone direction in terms of sales depends a lot on individual networks (a publisher has to reach out to a book buyer and the big book buyers are split according to genres so if the publisher doens't know a book buyer in YA, it might be difficult to sell to those books) and if the publisher doesn't have a finger in the YA pile and doesn't want to invest in breaking into that market, they might just decide they won't bother?

 

[Stephen Palmer]

As an ex-Waterstones employee I can confirm that the distribution system is exactly the same.

 

[Juliana]

I agree with what others say; may be more a question of marketing resources than actual physical distribution.

 

[tinkerdan]

Recently, due to another thread here, I did some personal metrics on my books; in part because I had both listed as Science Fiction and Young Adult Science Fiction.

I think the greatest difference is in the size of market. It poses some odd questions for which I do not yet have answers. However there are exponentially larger numbers of potential readers in the standard Science Fiction category than in the Young Adult Markets.

As a result, all my books are pushed far down the stack in Science fiction as little as 60 to well beyond 100 pages of selections when searching on Amazon.

In contrast I can craft a reasonable search in Young Adult Science Fiction that puts some of my work on page one and the rest on nearby pages. However because the market is smaller--it has made little difference.

It's possible that they mean that they don't see a market for those books presently, which actually might be wise, since one problem in that industry is when everyone gets on the same bandwagon and sales flag many publishers in the past have ended up shuttering the entire business from overextending themselves into new territory that gets flooded beyond its capacity.