ALLi News Editor, Dan Holloway
As so often happens, this week’s weekend roundup has seen a rather nice theme emerge. That theme is something of interest to indies, who write a lot in this area—YA fiction
There is a fascinating piece in the Guardian looking at new research done by HarperCollins into YA readers in the UK. The research found that seventy-four percent of YA readers were adults, and twenty-eight percent were over twenty-eight. This is particularly interesting given the trend that seemed to be emerging a few years back for so-called New Adult fiction (if one were really cruel, one might say “NA, as in ‘not applicable’ because no one reads it”). That seems to have fallen off a cliff.
In terms of why, some of the speculation is really interesting and may be helpful in positioning work. HarperCollins refers to “readers of all ages increasingly turning to YA as a source of comfort, nostalgia, and self-care.” Their implication is that YA is particularly suitable for reading for pleasure alone and that more readers of wider ages are valuing this aspect of reading (in contrast to what we might suspect from the seemingly endless articles about productive reading).
Talking of YA, I’ve come across a couple of pieces this week featuring the ur-site of YA: Wattpad. Len Epp from LeanPub takes a scathing look at the publishing industry’s figures on readers and writers in response to Elle Griffin’s provocatively titled viral article “No one buys books.” Epp points out the sheer scale of readers and writers active on Wattpad. He also takes a pop at Griffin’s somewhat shaky maths on the subject of bestsellers, which not only ignores the number of indie books selling six figures but also the number of books an indie author would have to sell to make six figures from a book. There’s also a really useful piece on Wattpad in The Book Designer.
Talking of six-figure-plus selling indies, congratulations to LJ Ross, who has been shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association’s Dagger in the Library award, which is essentially a hall of fame/lifetime achievement award for all-around long-term fabulousness. Very fitting!
