YA? Probably Not.

his is a debate I’ve been having with myself for some time now, can I reasonably call the Secrets of Witches trilogy Young adult, or at least teen fiction? Part of the reason I personally considered Bridge of Memories YA is mainly because the main characters are teenagers. The problem is, thus far almost all of my readers have been adults anywhere between 20-50+. No one younger than 19 (as far as I’m aware) has read my book as of yet and so it’s difficult to consider a book YA when your actual target audience isn’t reading your novel. To be fair, indie and YA is sort of a difficult mix mostly because teenagers are barely interested in reading period, let alone hunting for a book no one’s ever heard of. As Goddess of Carnage nears it’s publication date (faster than I ever expected) I’m once more tasked with the challenge of deciding what genre (beyond the obvious of fantasy) to place it in.

Here’s why I feel it’s probably not YA:

First and foremost, I’ve never actually written it with young readers in mind. I know that’s like rule number one of writing, consider the reader, but here’s the thing, I am technically considered a young adult (20 something) myself so do I really have to psychically think of my age group as I’m writing? Sure I’m not like most twenty-somethings, but I’m also not likely to use any kind of language that someone my age wouldn’t understand because it’s too outdated and no longer cool.

It’s also probably not YA because while the characters are both sixteen at the beginning of the book, by the start of book 2, their seventeen and by the end of it their nearly twenty-two. Something tells me that no longer fits under the genre of YA anymore. Not to mention the fact that it’s been said in YA never to write them having children because teenagers don’t like to read about characters doing the parenting thing. Oops. And it probably goes without saying that the simple fact of how much they swear, it seems like it would be frowned upon in traditional YA. (But then, I don’t read much YA so… I may not be the best judge)

I actually was never quite sure that I could even reasonably call Bridge of Memories YA in the first place, and I’m starting to think that perhaps that classification was a bad idea. But what do you think, knowing what you know about the trilogy (given what I’ve told you here) is it YA? Or am I right to assume that it’s probably not?