Why YA (highlighting 'Wicked Lovely')

YA is a huge deal right now in publishing, especially traditional publishing. Purely speculating, I think this is because publishing companies know that the number of kids who own e-readers is exponentially smaller than adults who own e-readers, so YA books will sell more paper copies than any mid-list book they put out for adults.

But it's not just the target audience reading YA, it's also a lot of adults. And I've been really curious why.

I expect one reason is because of the first issue: More publishers are approaching authors to write YA which is why there are so many more YA books in the here and now than a few years ago. Part of that is probably due to the popularity of things like Harry Potter, and even Twilight. But it's not just J. K. and Stephanie with their names printed on YA these days. It's some really stellar authors who might have had a new niche opened up for them that can build a fan base who enters adulthood seeking out their other offerings. What it really means is that there are so many more YA books, specifically series (which I'm sure publishers prefer when they get the chance, because marketing a series means the marketing investment isn't just for one book – also good for the author), that are more than worth the read.

So, on a lark, and because I'd been wanting to look into more current YA to get a better sense for the market, I picked up a copy of Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely. Why her and not any other YA books? One, faeries, which very distinctly aren't vampires or weres (I don't know how other authors handle things, but I prefer not reading too much other writer's lore for creatures I intend to make up my own lore for). And two, I noticed her name on the cover of a short-story collection called Naked City which features Jim Butcher and Patricia Briggs – heavy-hitters of Urban Fantasy.

I was pretty happy with the purchase. Marr's take on the fae is a lot like how I would write them if I ever set foot into those waters – they're definitely not human both in motivations and in appearance (some breeds more so than others), aren't really "good" or "evil" because the concepts are a bit foreign to them (ie they are what they are and don't apologize for it), and end up creating as much mischief as offering once-in-a-lifetime experiences. The main character, Aislinn (ash-lin – which I knew how to pronounce ahead of time thanks to an RolePlayer from twitter who uses a variation of the name for an original character), is a girl who has been able to see faeries her entire life and is a bit of a social outcast because of it – I considered that a very brilliant character fault that both made Aislinn's quirks entirely believable and ended up directly contributing to the plot.

The story itself was a page turner, building to a crescendo that made me insanely curious about how it would end and yet trusting that the characters in question would get to their various decisions in their own time after the right amount of personal growth took place. I will say that I was disappointed by one twist of the plot because I felt like it stole away from the otherwise stellar job Marr did in showing all that personal growth – it took away some of the thunder from the finale, which wasn't a let down of any sort except for being bogged down by that one, I thought unnecessary, twist.

Reading Wicked Lovely, and Harry Potter and even Twilight brought me to this realization of the draw of YA fiction to adults: all of us remember the time in our lives where the world was our playground, when we had our entire life ahead of us and we had so many possibilities in reach. Being a 'young adult' is that time when you can choose the course of your life from any number of paths that will bring you some sort of fulfillment. Some choices/paths will bring you more fulfillment than others, but that's still the beauty of that time in our lives – we're free to switch paths whenever we please because there's nothing holding us back. And reading YA as an adult allows us to recapture that sense of the world in a way that we weren't able to appreciate when we were that age.

I'll definitely be keeping my eyes on YA more in the future. The current YA, while accused of being dark, is definitely more adult than a lot of adult fiction these days – not because of their content, but because of the emphasis given to responsibility and consequences, two things that a lot of adults still have trouble with.

If I start a list of recommended YA reads, Wicked Lovely and Harry Potter will definitely make the cut.

Why was I curious about reading YA? Because of this very important question: I've got a book that I'm proud to have my name on, but who else is going to like reading it and where do I find them? (IE, who do I market to and how) There will definitely be more posts on that topic as we here at Crimson Melodies keep on keeping with our publishing journey.

Did you know Eyes of the Seer is now available in all the popular ebook formats?

And if you haven't read it, go check out Russell Blakes blog post "In Defense of Writing" – it's what put the question above more concretely in my head. (For the record, we're Camp B all the way.)

As always, thanks for reading,

Jesi

(aka Victor Mason)