The Young Adult fiction market is booming, read both by its anticipated teenaged audience and other adults exploring the fiction world. While the growing interest in reading is ultimately a fantastic thing, this growing audience makes an already unclear age group even hazier. This causes the design and marketing of these books to be constantly evolving. The packaging needs to be “beautiful and really appealing for 13, 14, 15-year-old readers but also aesthetically aspirational and pleasing for your older readers” (Dougal, 2024, 16:24) to serve all the readers that are adding to this growing audience. This changes the way the designs of these book covers are made, bringing in the idea of using different editions for different readers to make sure there is an appealing option for everyone. This also changes how the marketing of this genre needs to be tackled. While it needs to remain age appropriate, the marketing still needs to reach all possible readers. With new imprints like Simon and Schuster’s Gallery YA, the specific author and their audience is what is being catered to, they look at who the creator of the book is and what their specific audiences are looking for (Dougal, 2024, 20:15) when creating their marketing plans. This means there is a constant demand for innovative online campaigns to ensnare the teenagers and older generations that are reading these titles. With such a diverse audience, the use of influencers on BookTok and other social media campaigns should be a large part of the marketing strategy.

With such a constantly changing demographic, it is important to remember that “younger readers have always read up” (Dougal, 2024, 14:43) and so they too will continue to read novels and fiction that have a slightly older intended age group. This is where the new adult genre of fiction becomes particularly relevant. Similarly to YA, “new adult fiction is a literary category dependent on a relationship between the books in this category and a particular audience that has been constructed, of late, as ‘emerging adults’” (Pattee, 2017, p. 219). This allows publishers to cater to the bridge between YA and adult fiction. This offers readers, both young and old, a chance to continuously let their reading evolve as there are “two phases of coming of age: the emotional preparation for the journey being represented in YA, then the journey itself showcased in NA” (Brookover, Burns, and Jensen, 2014, p. 43).  This allows young and old readers alike to truly find themselves in these genres, no matter their age group.

With the publishing industry continuously choosing to cater to young readers, it allows a whole new generation of book lovers to emerge and choose to read books, further confirming the safety of the industry as a whole. With such a large market for young and new adult fiction, these genres deserve the attention they are receiving, online and in the publishing industry. The young adult fiction market is thriving, and its popularity shouldn’t be discredited; it should be celebrated for continuously creating a space where young and old readers alike can find joy in reading. 

Bibliography

Brookover, S., Burns, E., Jensen, K. 2014. What’s New About New Adult? Horn Book Magazine, [online] 90 (1), January, pp. 41-45. Available at: https://www.proquest.com/docview/1471041093?parentSessionId=GgdrTTO1ixzLsyPFFpIownFDcze9n2DnK0lCuwygKOc%3D&pq-origsite=primo&accountid=16607&sourcetype=Trade%20Journals. [Accessed October 18 2024].

Fraser, K., Dougal, A., McLoughlin, H., de Gomery, A., Croucher, L. 2024. The Bookseller Children’s Conference. What Next for YA? [conference panel] October 1, 2024.

Pattee, A. 2017. Between Youth and Adulthood: Young Adult and New Adult Literature. Children’s Literature Association Quarterly [online] 42 (2), Available at: https://www.proquest.com/docview/2009308284/fulltextPDF/45814AAF70C84B06PQ/1?accountid=16607&parentSessionId=YGukbvdAaUlkgSEoRFglEVntzXd4XMGJjiAChhp8nJU%3D&sourcetype=Scholarly%20Journals. [Accessed October 16 2024].

Image used: Photo of open hardback books by Martin Vorel https://libreshot.com/books-2/