An e-serial is a series of digital-only discrete dramatic novella-length “episodes” that advance an overall “season” narrative arc through 4-6 installments, published in at regular intervals at a low price.

We are conceptualizing e-serials as a loose bridge between a full length novel and a TV show. An e-serial episode is analogous to a one hour drama, one installment of a season of dramas. We’ve already started this experiment with The Sweet Life, which will be an e-serial featuring the continuing lives of the Wakefield twins–now 30 years old and living in California–and look forward to finding more stories to develop!

This is obviously a new and experimental format, but all the criteria for what makes a good novel still hold: high-concept hook, great writing, great characters. We’re excited to have Allison Rushby onboard with us for this!

In Nora Zelevansky’s hilarious debut, Semi-Charmed Life, an Upper West Side naïf, Beatrice Bernstein, gets swept up in the seeming magical life of socialite Veruca Pfeffernoose, while ghost-writing her blog. Veruca’s glitteringly opulent world soon seduces Beatrice away from her own insular, arty family with a promise of fancy parties, travel outside Manhattan (gasp!), and one desperately cute guy. But when her new glitzy lifestyle starts to take on dark undertones, Beatrice has to decide who she is–once and for all. With her own magical touch, Zelevansky deftly explores the world of rarified Manhattan in this sparkling modern fairy tale of first love, finding one’s voice, and growing up.

I know I’ve been fairly quiet on the new adult front lately, but that’s mostly because we’ve been working, working, working with no real news to report. However! Here’s a tangible piece! When I last updated you on what we had acquired, it was title THE PFEFFERNOOSE CHRONICLES, but now it has a brand new, shiny title as well as accompanying gorgeous cover!

My colleague Vicki edited it (and I think she’s done a bang-up job). SEMI-CHARMED LIFE will be published in July 2012, and we couldn’t be more excited!

More news to come (on this, and other titles) later. We’ve been working, we swear.

This morning on Twitter I posed the question of whether YA was a genre, a reading level, or a marketing category and the responses I got were great. People had varying opinions, of course, but what struck me was that in this roiling, frothing discussion, general a consensus was rising to the top:

YA is not a reading level; it is a specific perspective and aesthetic sensibility.

To me, this seems to indicate that YA is a genre.

gen·re (zhänr)

n.
A category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, marked by a distinctive style, form, or content.

Of course, the categorization of fiction has always been difficult and tricky. Unlike non-fiction, which you can easily shelve based on content and intent, fiction is a slippery fish. Fiction is hard to categorize because it has no overt, direct, or explicit purpose. It is indirect and intuitive, and not easily put in discrete boxes.

I asked this question from a personal and professional standpoint. Of course, here at Ye Olde Little Big Publisher, Cap’n Sweet Valley and I are trying to define the concept of New Adult (a few titles we’ve acquired will be publishing next year, so we’ll see how it goes!), and part of that involves distinguishing what makes a novel YA and what makes it adult, from both an editorial and marketing point of view. On a more personal level, I’m starting think there might be a disconnect in what I read and what I write: I read YA; I think I might be writing adult.

But for all I know I might be splitting hairs.

There are two ways of defining YA: from the inside out (editorially) and from the outside in (marketing). Me, I’m an inside out girl, so I try and identify what makes a story YA, not how that story will be perceived. The reason I tend to categorize YA as a genre and not merely a style of writing (as I consider literary a style–”literary” is an adjective, not a category, dammit!) is because so many different styles of writing can be found in YA.

What I find interesting about YA is that it seems to encompass all types of fiction we consider “genre”–science-fiction, fantasy, contemporary, historical, and romance–which is the complete opposite of what happens in “adult” fiction, where genre gets broken out into their own shelves. Personally, I think that’s because YA always tells the same emotional story–leaving childhood behind–therefore genre tropes and plotlines are secondary.

When it comes to YA, I think the entire world can agree on one rule: that the story must be about adolescents. While an adult book can have a teen protagonist, a YA book will never have an adult one. Aside from that, what else is characteristic of YA?

Inside Out

Emotion seems to have a lot to do it, and specifically emotional immediacy. My own teen years were characterized by what I call “emotional blinders”, because I had no perspective. I couldn’t step beyond myself to put my feelings into greater context because I had none. My thoughts were a train wreck in a tunnel: “Oh my god, I got an A- on this history exam, which will bring down my GPA, which will show up on my transcript, which will go to colleges, which means I will never get into college, which means I will never get a degree, which means I will never get a job, which means my life is ruined!” (And yes, before you point it out, I was your typical overachiever.) Despite the fact my parents reassured me that in the grand scheme of things, one A- on a history exam didn’t matter, I didn’t believe them. How could I, when I had no notion of a “grand scheme of things”?

I think this is why we often see YA written from the first person POV, because of the immediacy of it, but the text can be just as intimate from a third person POV. Narrative distance is minimal in YA, and it doesn’t have much of a sense of humour about itself. Not that YA isn’t funny or humorous, because it often is, but like a teenager, I feel YA narratives treat everything seriously. In order to have sense of humour about itself, the text needs to have enough distance to gently mock its characters, and if there’s one thing YA does not do, is mock itself. The narrative is almost always emotionally linear, the way my thoughts were as a teen.

Somewhere around 20, I learned the meaning of nostalgia. Of course I aware of its dictionary definition, but I hadn’t understood it until then. It’s an emotion unto itself, one I lacked at 16. With nostalgia came perspective, an ability to look back on my life with distance. Before, I could only see what was right in front of me, and what caused me pain was immediate, fresh, and seemingly unending. Before, I could only write of that pain as it happened to me. Now, I can write of that pain when it happened to me, and the immediacy is gone, replaced by something else: insight. Somewhere around 20, I began to grow up.

Outside In

From a marketing perspective, YA is thought of in terms of intended audience. The intended audience is for teenagers, and these days, it seems to be for teenage girls in particular, ages 14 and up. The marketing aspects annoy me a little, perhaps because there’s so much intent behind it. Marketing doesn’t let content speak for itself; it considers how that content can be sold, preferably to as many people as possible. There is an explosion of YA on the shelves these days, including the repackaging of previously adult titles as YA. I find this the most interesting–are they simply repackaging them as YA because of a teen protagonist? What distinguished this book from “children’s fiction” 10 years ago? The definition of YA is certainly evolving, and I feel it’s simultaneously broadening and narrowing at the same time.

Because sometimes I feel there are arbitrary limits on age (must be 18 or younger!), setting (must be high school if contemporary!), and content (everything goes, but “adult” themes like sex and marriage must be considered delicately!). In theory, marketing should make it easier for people who like to read this sort of fiction to find books they like, but in actuality, sometimes I feel books are written, edited, or shoehorned into a market, and that makes my hackles rise. I understand the need to make it easy for consumers to find, but I always feel as though I’ve been cheated somehow when I pick up a novel that I think is YA, only to discover it’s not. But why? Is it because I feel like it’s not conforming to genre conventions? Isn’t that silly of me?

Anyway, these are just some light thoughts to start your weekend. Happy Friday!

Anyway, I promise I haven’t dropped off the face of the planet, although I’ve been submerged in a flood of work, both at the office and outside of it. I have had plenty of things I’ve wanted to discuss with you, but life has looked a lot like this ever since BEA:

For those who haven't seen it--GO WATCH SHAUN OF THE DEAD RIGHT NOW.

Whoever said summer was a slow time in publishing was a LIAR. A nasty, filthy, disgusting liar. And while I still have a myriad of things to do, I’m going to take some time out of my busy schedule to answer a question I have gotten a million times over (and inspired by this post by agent Jennifer Laughran):

How did you get into publishing?

When I probe a little further, the majority of these questions seem to be about how I got into editorial, which is what most people seem to think of when they think of The Industry. (Within the confines of my blog and my insular little world, The Industry is publishing, not Hollywood.) There are many components to working in publishing: from marketing to publicity to sales to production, but what people are the most curious about is how I got on the editorial path.

I will be candid: luck. Luck and nepotism. (Well, sort of nepotism. Just about, anyway.)

Right? Seems totally unfair, doesn’t it? It is, and I don’t deny it. I am lucky; I managed to stumble into a job that is perfectly suited for me. I wasn’t the sort of English major who knew she would be sitting at an editor’s desk one day–in fact, I didn’t know publishing was even a viable option. I had the sort of square, stodgy middle-class upbringing that led me to think the only career paths in life included medicine, law, or finance–or if I were really daring, engineering. My parents worked in finance, my mother’s relatives were all lawyers or doctors, and my dad’s relatives are engineers for the most part. Because it became increasingly clear as I grew older that math and I were never meant to be friends, it was simply assumed I would become a lawyer. After all, I got a degree in English; it would be only natural I would take that English degree and get my juris doctorate.

So I worked in corporate law as a legal assistant as my first post-college gig.

My parents, ever pragmatic and ever ruthless, told me in no uncertain terms that The Bank of Mum and Dad would be closed three months after I graduated. I was 20 years old, living in the dining nook of a Chelsea apartment, with a degree in English Literature and a few half-hearted PR internships under my belt, and no marketable skills except the ability to write a good sentence and read faster than the speed of light. (My only super power.) I applied to every possible job under the sun, and got offered several legal assistant positions. (Why, I’m not sure.) They paid rather well and I thought, “Why not give a try?”

I lasted four months.

Here’s the thing about corporate law: it ruins your life. My apologies to anyone wanting to pursue said field, but it pretty much ruined mine. Sure, I might have been making 6-figures in my first job out of college, but I was also working 100 hours a week, suffering from vitamin D deficiency (I never saw the light of day in the four months I worked there–quite literally, as I also had an inner office with NO WINDOWS), sleep deprivation, and nutritional collapse. Law is also a profession that stifles, rather than encourages creativity: everything is set on precedent. Everything. EVERYTHING. I’m not someone who easily fits into the mold–not that I’m intentionally rebellious–but it takes a lot of effort for me to conform to a safe, stodgy standard. I’m not by nature a people pleaser.

I knew it was the beginning of the end when HR called me into the office to chastise me for my outfit. I was conservatively dressed (or so I thought) in a black pencil skirt, a white button-down, a burgundy cardigan, and heels. And to set it off, I decided to wear a little fashion scarf about my neck. A little touch of me. Nothing too outrageous, but just a little something–anything–to set me apart.

“Please put that scarf away,” said the HR lady.

I hastily complied, not wanting to get in trouble, but couldn’t resist a little lip. “Why?”

“Personality might have mattered in college,” she said in a clipped voice, “but not here.”

And so I was out.

Naturally, my parents were concerned when I told them I would never again consider law as a viable profession.

“But what do you want to do?” they asked. “What can you?”

What could I do? I could read. And write. I read and read and read and read and read and I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote. I loved books more than I loved nearly anything in the world.

So I got a job in private wealth management instead.

Why? Partially because of the skills I obtained in corporate finance were apparently useful in a finance field, but it was also due to the fact that I temped there and then got a full-time job. At this point in my life, I rather knew that I didn’t want to be in corporate America, but I still had no idea what else I wanted to do. Except read. And write.

It was at this point I had joined a small writing group and met one of my future roommates, who worked at a literary agency. Soon we were exchanging bits of our writing, and I began to learn a little bit about the actual process of getting published, but more than that, I began to learn how to critique, how to edit, how to help someone shape a book, and how to look at a book–not as a writer, but as an editor. And I loved it.

But still the thought of pursuing publishing as a career never crossed my mind. I was well-acquainted with what publishing calls a “living wage” (ha!), and at that time I was paying $1100 for the privilege of sharing a living room (my bed was in one corner and my roommate’s in the other) in Manhattan. Could I give up a decent salary and stay in a dull job, or would I be willing to sacrifice my standard of living for the joy of doing what I really loved?

In the end, my decision was made for me. My job went the way of the economy at the end of 2008 and I was suddenly faced with an opportunity, of possibly making a lateral career move. And this is where nepotism comes into play. What did I do? I called the director of the Writers House intern program, to whom I had been introduced when my writing partners and I read at his Kettle of Fish reading series. He gave me a position. It was that simple.

It wasn’t so straightforward, of course. I had to audition, like any other potential intern–I read a manuscript and wrote an editorial letter. Soon, I was interning for Al Zuckerman, writing readers reports and editorial letters. And here’s where luck came in. I was lucky; I worked for Al, who set me to reading and writing, who took me out for lunches to discuss my career, who encouraged me and supported me, who called me “brilliant”, and who sent my editorial thoughts to his clients. He could have just as easily set me to photocopying and making his coffee. He didn’t. He chose to mentor me.

The internship ended, and I was again faced with the prospect of job searching. There were no open positions at Writers House, and it was universally acknowledged that it was a tough time to be breaking into publishing, what with editors getting laid off left and right, and the industry apparently imploding on itself. And by now I had finally discovered what it was I wanted to do. I wanted to work with books–in any way, shape, or form–be it writing, selling, agenting, or editing.

So I tried and tried and tried and failed and failed and failed to land a job in publishing. I applied to every position at every house, even for positions I wasn’t even remotely qualified for. I applied for designer jobs, for production jobs, for publicity jobs, for sales jobs, for jobs in academic houses, for jobs in magazine editorial–everything. Not a single bite. For five months and tried and failed and tried and failed. And I could only give on the grace of someone’s else tax dollars for so long.

My parents, bless them, were supportive in their own way. They knew I loved books and respected that I wanted to work in publishing, although my father kept suggesting jobs as a business writer (to which he had connections) and my mother kept dropping hints about me getting an M.F.A. in Illustration and/or Design. But just as I was about to give up and throw in the towel, to apply for another temp agency, and find another job as a desk jockey in corporate America, I got a break. Cap’n Sweet Valley was looking for an assistant, and Writers House put my name forward (among others). The assistant position just happened to be in editorial. Out of the six candidates he interviewed, he picked me.

And here I am.

Do I have the most typical path to publishing? Probably not, although you’ll find that most people in the industry started out as a lowly intern somewhere. Was I luckier than some? Absolutely. Did I have my foot in the door? Of course. But that did that I mean I didn’t try? Of course not. I tried. And failed. So many times. And I’m not the only one who did. More than luck, more than nepotism, I was persistent. I wanted it, so I kept trying.

So my advice to people seeking to break in this industry if to keep trying. Keep applying to internships. Build connections with people, try to get your foot in the door (as much as I hate to admit it, it’s kind of crucial). Read and read and read and read, and maybe even try your hand a little at writing. But don’t give up. If you give up, then you’ll never get there. No one’s going to walk by and drop a publishing job in your lap.

So keep trying. Keep failing. But never, ever give up.

There persists a myth in our collective social conscience: that to name something or to know someone’s true name was to have power over him or her. I thought that if I could just find my sexuality’s true name, I could finally stop refining and defining that part of myself.

I really need to stop agreeing to guest blogs and articles. Because I forget I have to write them. So I end up writing them at the 11th hour, panicking in the middle of a Game of Thrones episode, and then dashing off 1200 words with nary a proofread. Oops. I’m sorry! But I am also proud of this one, which is about labels and touches on the problematic way society views bisexuality.

There must be something in the air (or perhaps the books we read and the media we consume) that is making many writers blog about the subject of sex in fiction (and specifically YA). Kody Keplinger (who wrote the wonderfully sex-positive THE DUFF) blogged about it (twice!) at YA Highway, Marie Lu asked why sex is considered “more shameful” than violence, and Karen Healey writes the most awesome kickass post about obligation, both teenage and adult.

We have a strange relationship with sex, and by “we”, I can only really talk about Americans because that is what I know and how I was raised. I think Coach Carr in Mean Girls sums up our weird attitude perfectly.

At your age, you’re going to have a lot of urges. You’re going to want to take off your clothes, and touch each other. But if you do touch each other, you WILL get chlamydia… and die! [...] Don’t have sex, because you will get pregnant and die! Don’t have sex in the missionary position, don’t have sex standing up, just don’t do it, OK, promise?

Sex is wrong! Sex will lead to consequences! But, uh, we feel uncomfortable talking about it, so be safe. Or better yet, let’s avoid it altogether! And if you can’t avoid it, then let’s avoid speaking of it at all!

Why is it that sex makes us uncomfortable? Not just in YA, but in fiction as a whole? There’s something to be concluded from our tendency to glorify violence and shame sex. I am going to trot out my Feminist card and posit a theory: it has to do with misogyny.

Oh god, you might say, please don’t tell me JJ’s one of those man-hating bra burners.

You know what? Fuck it. I don’t hate men and I don’t burn bras (because when you’re as ample-bosomed as me, you need several good pairs), but I am not going to apologize for being potentially offensive by the simple fact that I am calling out what I see as subconscious misogyny.

Here’s the thing. Violence has traditionally been considered a male aspect, but sex? Sex has been considered throughout the ages as a woman’s weapon. Cleopatra, Mata Hari, there are famous women throughout history who have achieved great things and amassed a lot of power through the power of “feminine wiles”. Sexual allure, in other words. There are stories in our collective consciousness, myths from our deepest psyches about men held in thrall by a powerful, sexual woman, and this fear of becoming subsumed by desire and emasculated still runs through us. Rape is violence against sex, a man’s aggression against a woman’s weapon, and the only way they can reclaim power for themselves.

(For the sake of this blog post, I am generalizing. Please note that it isn’t as though I believe that women can’t be rapists, or that men can’t be dangerous sexual creatures, or that other genders in between don’t exist.)

How does this come through in today’s society? The notion that Violence > Sex has wormed its way into our collective subconscious. It’s why extreme violence can still earn a PG-13 rating in a movie, but sex gets an R. It’s why “kickass” (violent) heroines are considered “better” or bizarrely, more “feminist” than girly ones. It’s why sexually active women in fiction and media were historically coded as “morally bankrupt”. They were divorcees (having sex but no longer married), or unmarried mothers (sex out of wedlock), or mistresses (sex without marriage), or adulterers (sex with the wrong person outside marriage). There is apparently nothing more dangerous than a female with sexuality unconstrained by the hand of her father or her husband. (Ew.)

Of course, we would hope that we are more sophisticated now. And we might be in some ways, but that idea that sex is a woman’s weapon and therefore somehow inappropriate and inherently more dangerous still exists today. There is no male equivalent of the word “slut”. You may call a male person a “slut” or “man-whore”, but it never seems to carry the same shameful connotation. More often, sexually promiscuous males are called “studs” or some other virile compliment.

Somewhere along the way, we came to see violence as useful (War gets things done!), but sex as dirty, or something that needs to be properly hemmed in by concepts like “right time” and “true love” and “intimacy” and “marriage”. When sex appears in books and media not quantified by said concepts, then it becomes “gratuitous”. And “censor-able”. And “inappropriate”.

Bullshit.

Sex is as much a fact of life as violence; in fact, it affirms life. What a strange value scale we have, when we consider killing people less objectionable than affirming life. Why is that? Why do we consider sex dirty? Why do we think violence in books is somehow “good” because it teaches us how to deal with violence? How sad is it that we don’t consider sex in books “good” because it teaches us how to deal with sex? Why is it that we consider sex so sinful we can only show it when it’s sacred?

And believe me, sex is not always sacred. It’s vulgar, it’s funny, it’s awkward, it’s fun, it’s beautiful, it’s depressing, it’s as varied and part of life as violence, if not more so. I don’t go about regularly inflicting violence, but I regularly have sex. I had sex as a teenager. I have had sex with multiple partners. I had my “slut years”, as I affectionately call them, getting to know a city by hopping in and out of people’s beds. I have had sex with other women. Why is it considered uncouth to admit that? Why is that somehow considered “wrong”? Now that you know all this about me, do you think any less of me?

I’ve always thought writers had an obligation to portray the truth, and it’s a strange world where sex doesn’t exist.