There’s been a lot of discussion about New Adult lately. Which is great, it’s rising in popularity and the industry is sitting up and taking notice. Agents are accepting submissions and publishers are signing it. Some e-publishers are even opening NA imprints. Plus Amazon listed NA as a category just last week.
This is great, fabulous, wonderful news for both readers and writers.
But there also seems to be a little controversy surrounding the category. I saw a tweet today, not the first I’ve seen, stating a certain publisher on a writing panel is excited about NA because it is late teens to early twenties main characters, Young Adult with lots of sex. When I saw this tweet I swallowed, took a deep breath and said to myself ok. That’s ok. It’s just one publisher’s opinion.
The thing is, I don’t think it is.
Is this NA for turtles?
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I’ve seen this opinion before, to be fair much less than I’ve seen the other view–same as mine–of what NA entails. Now, I don’t write NA, so I’m no expert but I like to read it. I’ve read a few published books and even more unpublished manuscripts. One of my CPs only writes NA and all 5 of her manuscripts are so much more than that. In fact, none of the NA I’ve read has been like reading YA at all, nor has it been all about sex. That’s like saying YA is Middle Grade with kissing. Or Fantasy is contemporary with dragons. It just doesn’t even begin to sum up the genre nor is it true of all books in that genre.
I think this opinion cheapens New Adult. It is so much more than Young Adult with sex. Yes some NA does have sex scenes or even sex as a central theme or plot device but that is only a small section of the category. To me–I think–New Adult is stories that usually cover issues of love, college, finding one’s calling /path in life. First jobs, first time in the real world outside of school. It is not as centered on self discovery as YA but it is still present. I wrote another blog post about that awhile ago. About the differentiation between MG, YA, and NA. You can find it here.
Anyway, I think some publishers are jumping on this bandwagon because YA has been big for a while, then 50 Shades brought erotica into the spotlight, and really 50 Shades is kind of NA with sex as a theme. So they’re looking to tap that market. But all adult books don’t have sex scenes or center around sex and neither do all New Adult books. I’m scared if that’s what some publishers believe NA is and therefore choose to only publish NA in this vein, that it is what NA will become.
Gosh, I hope not.
Or maybe this is NA for Meerkats?
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