Bookmatchers.com - matching readers with books

[C.P.]

What WAS I thinking? :-D

[Bryn]

:} We know each other well enough for me to sound touchy there... Not keen on the whole YA concept, as you can gather.

[C.P.]

Yes, I got it. YA seems to me a fake concept, purely a marketing gimmick. But it can be very graphic, so I was already making a joke. ;)

[Bryn]

I wouldn't have got the joke, as I have no information on the subject (YA = run away). Like you say: I used to enjoy novels that might go down with a teenage audience -- no matter what my age is -- until they invented YA.

[Hazel]

YA definitely does not have the restrictions on content that I think it should. I only really promoted a couple of my books like "On a Foreign Field" as YA because it was about things I think teens should read. But that doesn't mean it can't be enjoyed by adults as well. It is becoming more and more a marketing gimmick though, as CP says, I believe.

[C.P.]

What makes YA odd is that adults mediate it. When I was a teen, I loved The Scarlet Pimpernel, the Angélique books, Forever Amber, Georgette Heyer, Emilie Loring, Mara, Daughter of the Nile, Norah Lofts, Jean Plaidy, Victoria Holt, Catherine Gavin, Constance Heaven, and a ton of other stuff that would not be considered YA today.

As an adult, I enjoyed the Matched trilogy (at least the first book) and the Hunger Games 1 and 2, not 3—which are considered YA. Would not be caught dead reading the Twilight series.

So what is YA? And who decides? Not teenagers, for sure.

[Hazel]

No. I know plenty of adults who read YA in fact it's possible more adults read YA than teens actually. Personally I don't care what a story is classed as as long as there's not a ton of explicit adult content in it. As for the classics... you can find unabridged versions of all of Alcott's Austin's and the Bronte's books in both adult and YA sections of the bookstores... it's just in the YA section they have re-published them with gothic covers which is totally stupid in my opinion.

[Pauline]

Bryn wrote: "Just done this... enjoyed the quiz about my book.

Had a horrid thought a moment after I submitted. I think I put No Graphic Sex but I forgot Suchigu and Pajai: is that graphic? Seriously don't kn..."

Steven is also very helpful. I made mistakes with the entry for my book and emailed him with the changes I wanted to make and he made the changes for me.

[Jan]

A recent post on the thread on Kindleboards.

I hadn't been to the site for a bit, and just checked in. It's really good. Well done. I note a lot of discussion on Passive Voice about the lack of discoverability. This addresses it.

I also haven't read all this thread, so this may be redundant. I filled out the spec list, and the results were pretty good. When I finished it, I would have liked to name and save it. Say I named it "Thriller1." I could then come back, sign in, and click on "Thriller1." Maybe I would have another named "Mystery1."

So, if this has all been hashed out, my apologies. In any case, good work.

Reply from Steven.

Thanks for your feedback, and no, this hasn't been discussed before. It is, however, something that I would like to add to the site in the next phase. Right now, I still consider the site to be a proof of concept. Once the traffic gets a little more consistent and the number of books listed gets higher, I would like to start doing some serious development on the site to make it more robust. Being able to save your searches is one of the big additions I would like to make. Allowing readers to create their own personal accounts is another.

[John]

Really enjoying reading the comments here, some of them quite tickled me : )
For what its worth my opinion on graphic sex is when you leave the light on.

[Jan]

John wrote: )
For what its worth my opinion on graphic sex is when you leave the light on."

LOL