Marketing “New Adult”

A reminder to anyone entering the St. Martin’s “New Adult” Contest, the deadline is Friday, November 20.

Secret Society Girl by Diana Peterfreund

Diana Peterfreund, whose SECRET SOCIETY GIRL novels I have been touting as “new adult” has written some great posts on the concept. She approaches the subject from marketing angles, which is admittedly a difficult subject to tackle. People are rightly saying that “new adult” as a type of book exists; we’re not doing anything new or particularly revolutionary here.

What we are trying to do, first and foremost, is find more adult fiction that can appeal to twentysomething readers. This isn’t to say that we think twentysomethings are “unready” for adult fiction–on the contrary, we are publishing adult titles. Marketing will always be a problem in this industry; I won’t go into the arguments about the “ghettoization” of different genres and the “genre snobbery” that exists. Because they both exist. Ethnic fiction, romance, mystery/thriller, sci-fi/fantasy, chick lit/women’s fic, these are all problematic labels because they are labels.

But without labels, we would have difficulty navigating the shelves. Imagine you wanted to read a book about a young woman with a magical gift who falls in love with an immortal fallen angel. Where would this go? Where would you find it? It could be shelved in fantasy with its paranormal element, or else it could go in romance with its love story, or even YA depending on the age of the young woman.

There will always be an outcry whenever labels come up. “New Adult” was not meant to be the be-all, catch-all name for this category, although it seems to have been taken up by people. In all honesty, we are trying to market to “young” adults–that is, people who are newly over the age of majority, who might find more in common with a protagonist who is 22 than one who is 45 and having an affair with someone much younger. (Not that this at all accurately or comprehensively sums up what’s being published in adult fiction.) Unfortunately, Young Adult as a category title has already been taken. This is not a literary judgment–this is a publisher trying to find books that will appeal to a niche market, pure and simple.

Niche markets are everywhere, whether readers like it or not. Commercial fiction is a niche market. Legal thrillers are a niche market. Romance is a niche market. Chick lit and women’s fiction is a niche market. YA is a niche market. This particular publisher thinks that twentysomethings is a niche market.

Diana Peterfreund is able to put it so much more succinctly than I:

I think they are misreading what is meant by “full on adult stories” however. It’s like the people who think that because a book is categorized as a YA it can’t have mature complex themes. (Guys, To Kill a Mockingbird is YA. Just saying. It’s an issue of subject matter, not of maturity level. Even if I am a married-with-kids soldier at 22, I’m still probably going to want to read about married with kids 22 year olds than 40 year olds. (And indeed, some of the books that SMP uses to illustrate this “new adult” range features teens who are married with kids — Hello Ice by Sarah Beth Durst.) Or I’ll want the escapist factor— not being married or with kids. What SMP is saying is that there seems to be a gap in books ABOUT people that age, written for an adult audience.

A large part of it is indeed subject matter. It’s not a value judgment on “quality” (however you personally determine that). I love reading YA. Always have and I probably always will. YA books can be just as sophisticated and well-written as an adult novel (just look at the works of John Green). But YA is about teenagers. I’m not a teenager anymore and I haven’t been for a very long time. The last two adult books I read were about a 55-year-old man marrying for the second time and a woman dealing with a mother-in-law from hell.

Whether or not our endeavors are successful, I still think the adult fiction market could benefit more from publishing books that appeal to twentysomethings. Just saying.