#publishing world

*gets on the soapbox*

What is it about a young protagonist that automatically makes a reader assume that a book is a young adult (YA) title? Or that it takes place in a school setting? This appears more prevalent in contemporary Adult Fantasy and usually works written by female-identifying authors. 

Fortunately, I’ve located some articles that have gone into the reasoning behind this as well as provide examples. 

As Nunnally from Book Riot points out, there is fault both on the publisher and the book community for mislabeling/miscategorizing an Adult Fantasy as YA Fantasy. It’s interesting to see that some of the publishers are starting to “walk back” or perhaps “right the wrong” of previous issues. 

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas was her first series and originally marketed to a YA audience despite some dubious elements and themes present through the series. Bloomsbury has now rebranded and reprinted it under their Adult imprint to go along with A Court of Thorns and Roses, which had also been miscategorized, and Crescent City. I’m sure this was entirely a “correction” on their part and had nothing at all to do with another factor. *cough* 🤑

It also doesn’t help when even book awards start to blur the lines such as when the World Science Fantasy Society Lodestar (awarded alongside the Hugos) Award winner for 2 years was Naomi Novik's A Deadly Education and The Last Graduate. Both books are not Young Adult titles, yet they received the award “for a book published for young adult readers in the field of science fiction and fantasy.” Again, just because a title takes place in a school setting doesn’t mean it’s for a younger audience. 

I find it distressing to see the book community miscategorize a title for whatever reason: a young protagonist, compelling/"easy?" writing (i.e. “reads young”), low-stakes plot “shallow story,” etc. I see this too often in book vloggers’ videos even now, and it feels like they’re doing a disservice if not disrespecting the author’s work despite any enjoyment the readers express as well. 

What can be done to resolve this issue? It’s tough to say since there may not be one solution to the problem. Perhaps a reader could say that “there is YA appeal” or “a younger audience might find this a good book” rather than outright miscategorizing a title. I also like what Briana on Pages Unbound says, “I do think it’s worth examining our personal attitudes, what we think ‘must be’ YA as opposed to adult literature.”

pages and books blanketing the surfaces of our house in Aba. When

the electricity died, as it often did, I read by candlelight or with a torchlight

balanced against my body. Both my parents had been heavy readers; they

dragged their libraries into their marriage and kept them separate, distinct,

as if they both knew their relationship would end. My father had a

collection of Reader’s Digest condensed novels on the top shelf of the

bookcase in my brother’s room. In one of them, a little boy called his sister

stupid because she was seven years old. I took it personally when I first

read it, bristling with rage, because I was seven, too. That didn’t mean we

were stupid.

When my parents discovered I’d started reading the sex-advice columns

in my mother’s magazines as a child because I had run out of material, they

quickly bought me more books. Stories became my entire world, unchecked

and unrestricted; I was nine when I read V. C. Andrews’s Flowers in the

Attic, which I think is entirely too young for a child as lonely as I was. My

sister and I rummaged through my mother’s trunk, a steel tomb tucked in a

corner of the house, and we found a copy of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca,

with that haunting first line: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley

again.” My father’s library had a copy of Ken Follett’s book The Key to

Rebecca, which I’d read before, and eleven-year-old me was in awe at

finding a book that I’d first read about inside another book; worlds eating

worlds, all made by words.

By the time I started college in the States, I’d read every book in my

childhood home. The white dean of my school kept introducing me as the

sixteen-year-old freshman from West Africa who’d already read Dickens

and Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, as if any of that was surprising or special. I’d

only read those books because they were there; the awe associated with a

certain European literary canon wasn’t relevant. I’d also read Cyprian

Ekwensi, Ayi Kwei Armah, Buchi Emecheta, Chinua Achebe, the secret

copy of The Joy of Sex hidden away in my parents’ room, every

encyclopedia entry in my school library on Greek mythology, labels on

shampoo bottles, the sides of cornflakes boxes and Bournvita tins during

breakfast, countless contraband Harlequin and Mills & Boon romance

novels bartered with secondary-school classmates, narrative interludes in

my brother’s video games, and all the parts of the Bible that referenced sex.

It wasn’t until much later that I realized that there was a canon I was

expected to prioritize, especially if I wanted to consider myself a writer, that

the work of dead white men could be a type of currency.

I am a twenty-something newbie writer, I published two books in the past two years and in 2023 another one is gonna be out very soon.

I won’t advertise my works here, so I am not sharing the pen name I use as an author. This is not the goal of the blog nor it would make sense, since the language I write and publish my books in is not English so most of you would not be able to purchase and read them anyway.

I am here to share some tips, chat about the writing process, answer questions about the publishing world, and obsessing about writing in general.

As said in my bio, the books I write and publish are mostly queer books about queer characters. However, whatever kind of book you have in the making, you just plotted, you already finished writing, you just have a vague idea of, I am here for you!

This is a sideblog, so I’m not gonna send you asks/follow you from this blog. My main is a fandom blog and it’s called @littleturtle95. If you find it following you after you follow me... it’s me!

When Ash was published in 2009, it got one starred review as well as one that criticized it for not including any positive male role models. The publisher pushed it hard, but although it was a finalist for many awards, it didn’t win any.

Later I learned that some committee members dinged it because it didn’t have a coming out story. Ash is a lesbian retelling of Cinderella, but being queer in her world is normal, so she doesn’t need to come out. Some people thought it was unrealistic. Note: It’s a fantasy novel.

My most recent book, Last Night at the Telegraph Club, has done better out of the gate than any of my other novels, including Ash. LNatTC has received 7 starred reviews (!!) and hit the Indie Bestsellers list for two weeks in a row! (Not the NYT though.)

This has made me very happy, but I’m under no illusions. This book would not have been a success at any time in the past 14 years of my career. First, I wouldn’t have had the skills to write this book until now. It was hard.

But also, LNatTC is about a queer Chinese American girl. This is not a type that’s generally found in bestsellers. And the book has queer sex in it. It doesn’t fade to black. This probably would’ve kept it out of school libraries until very recently.

And it doesn’t shy away from its cultural roots. I mean, there is Chinese in it. Literally, 中文 in character form. Until the last couple of years, all non-English words in YA were italicized to call out their foreignness.

I’m thrilled that LNatTC has been doing so well, but I know that this success comes out of decades of fighting a system that has traditionally prevented books like it from being published. I see the changes that have happened since I started my career and I’m very heartened.

At the same time, countless authors of color and queer authors have had their work marginalized for so long — and maybe they haven’t had a spouse like mine to support them financially — so they likely gave up. We’ve lost so many talented writers to this system.