Wednesday, April 22, 2015

New Adult Fiction- Fad or Fact

Going along with trends in contests, I got to thinking about the New Adult age category. Is it here to stay or a fad?

I can't say I see any drive behind the search for NA manuscripts from the agents. There might be a few more entries coming through in contests this year, but I don't see agents looking for them specifically. When we asked agents to let us know their wishlists for Query Kombat, no one mention wanting more NA.

And I have seen agents on twitter mentioning that NA is still only for romance. Though we get many NA fantasy or NA science fiction, I believe agents are considering that as purely adult. They're ignoring the NA label when they request and looking at those entries as if they are to be sold as adult fiction.

Three years ago, I tried using the NA label as something new and possibly becoming the new hot fad, like dystopian had been before. It flat out didn't work. Over these three years, I haven't noticed a change except for more acceptance of NA being a real thing--for romance only. Yet, there is still no real drive to find NA or any hot demand, that I've been able to detect.

NA Romance inside a fantasy/paranormal world is selling based on my CP, Angie Sandro, sales of four books to Grand Central of her NA Romance Southern Paranormal, (That's a mouthful.) DARK PARADISE and it's sequels.

Another instance, our NA champion in last year's Query Kombat (Cozy Mystery) got a wonderful three book deal, but as an adult story. Max Wirestone's THE UNFORTUNATE DECISIONS OF DAHLIA MOSS sold to Orbit. 

I don't think the NA label has turned into a real and steady market yet...  time will tell whether this grows to include more than romance or falls flat. Keep in mind that's just my unprofessional opinion. Has anyone heard differently?  

3 comments:

  1. I think it's probably because people see new adults AS adults, even though in reality, they're YOUNG adults, but YOUNG ADULT fiction is argh...it's a crazy cycle of real age vs book age, I think.

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  2. The new NA is a marketing, not a literary category. I'm also of the school that once a reader is past fourteen, they are reading everything and even YA (not a category only a short time ago) is artificial. But as a writer I don't think about it too hard.

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  3. I think NA holds a ton of potential. I was an idiot in my late teens/early twenties, and I think, had some of the NA that exists now existed then, that I could have learned a few things and spared myself some...issues. It does seem like without it, there's a definite hole in the market.

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