Welcome to the Historical Fiction Online forums: a friendly place to discuss, review and discover historical fiction.
If this is your first visit, please be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above.
You will have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed.
To start viewing posts, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Your input on website/blog redesign

Please read "A Note to Authors" in the Board Rules before posting here.
Forum rules
Please read "A Note to Authors" in the Board Rules before posting here. This is the place for actively participating forum members who are also authors to post news about newly released books, book deals, book tours, blog tours, public appearances, awards, etc. Author members who are active in other areas of the forum, other than in self-promotion, are welcome to post here; those who post only here or who post only self-promotional material on the forum will be considered for deletion as spammers. Please reserve this forum for truly newsworthy items; reviews of your books or notifications of new blog posts you make, for example, are not considered newsworthy for purposes of this forum.
User avatar
Catherine Delors
Avid Reader
Posts: 399
Joined: August 2008
Location: Paris, London, Los Angeles
Contact:

Post by Catherine Delors » Tue February 23rd, 2010, 8:58 pm

Amazon put it in YA for months and my publisher didn't see anything wrong with it. True, my heroine is eleven at the beginning of the story, yet the novel features incest, rape and various forms of violence, domestic and political. But I was told that standard YA fare includes that because teens and preteens are more "mature" than in the heyday of Nancy Drew. Ah, I loved Nancy...

So by the same token you could think of The Lovely Bones as YA because the protagonist/victim is a teenager. Why not? I read pretty much anything in my parents' library as a kid, and some of my childhood discoveries, like the Odyssey, Eugenie Grandet and Don Quixote, remained lifelong loves. And, Miss M, I read Proust's _A la recherche du temps perdu_, the whole Pleiade edition, in my teens. But then I love to get immersed in loooong books. :)

Yet I never wrote Mistress with a YA audience in mind. Not that I don't enjoy the genre, far from it, but the book is a bit long (around 180,000 words or so) and the political issues may be too heavy for a teenager.

I don't think For the King is going to be marketed as YA, though. Rather standard romantic HF.

User avatar
Ariadne
Bibliophile
Posts: 1151
Joined: August 2008
Location: At the foothills of Mt. Level

Post by Ariadne » Tue February 23rd, 2010, 10:04 pm

Thanks for the info on Alexa, Catherine! I plugged in my site and it didn't tell me much, but I may have to include some code in there for it to give me demographics. Must investigate after I get home.

I wouldn't have thought of Mistress of the Revolution as YA at all, interesting.

User avatar
Catherine Delors
Avid Reader
Posts: 399
Joined: August 2008
Location: Paris, London, Los Angeles
Contact:

Post by Catherine Delors » Tue February 23rd, 2010, 10:13 pm

Those are the mysteries of publishing, Ariadne!

User avatar
Divia
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 4435
Joined: August 2008
Location: Always Cloudy, Central New York

Post by Divia » Tue February 23rd, 2010, 10:38 pm

Well, all those topics are up for grabs in the YA market. In fact my teens love it.

I read your book and didnt think of it as a YA novel. That doesnt mean you couldn't write one...or that teens didn't read your book. I know Michelle said she gets a lot of teen fan mail.

Some of the most popular books with rape, incest, drug abuse etc. are Ellen Hopkins poetry novels. I cant keep them on the shelf.

I'm glad that you are with your budget. Thats great. I look forward to seeing the new website.
News, views, and reviews on books and graphic novels for young adult.
http://yabookmarks.blogspot.com/

User avatar
Catherine Delors
Avid Reader
Posts: 399
Joined: August 2008
Location: Paris, London, Los Angeles
Contact:

Post by Catherine Delors » Tue February 23rd, 2010, 10:59 pm

That's exactly what I heard about YA, Divia. And I also heard of "mainstream" HF writers who are nudged toward YA. Nothing wrong with it as long as it is consensual...

This isn't happening to me with For the King, though. I am watching the 1st draft of my book trailer right now, and it has a lot of humph. I like that. I will post it when it is finished. Also within budget!

User avatar
Miss Moppet
Bibliophile
Posts: 1726
Joined: April 2009
Location: North London
Contact:

Post by Miss Moppet » Tue February 23rd, 2010, 11:40 pm

[quote=""Catherine Delors""]

So by the same token you could think of The Lovely Bones as YA because the protagonist/victim is a teenager. Why not? I read pretty much anything in my parents' library as a kid, and some of my childhood discoveries, like the Odyssey, Eugenie Grandet and Don Quixote, remained lifelong loves. And, Miss M, I read Proust's _A la recherche du temps perdu_, the whole Pleiade edition, in my teens. But then I love to get immersed in loooong books. :) [/quote]

Oh I love Pleiades. I have two treasured volumes of my own (Mme de Sevigne and a Saint-Simon) and the others I get from the library. The La Nouvelle Heloise I am reading is a Pleiade. I just love the paper and they are so compact to carry around. On the minus side they have super boring cover so I've used the cover to an English translation for my blog.
Catherine Delors wrote:Yet I never wrote Mistress with a YA audience in mind. Not that I don't enjoy the genre, far from it, but the book is a bit long (around 180,000 words or so) and the political issues may be too heavy for a teenager.
That was my impression too, although I'd better reserve judgement on Amazon and your publisher until I read the book!

User avatar
Catherine Delors
Avid Reader
Posts: 399
Joined: August 2008
Location: Paris, London, Los Angeles
Contact:

Post by Catherine Delors » Wed February 24th, 2010, 12:12 am

Ah yes, the Pleiades are wonderful, and so carefully edited. I may get the complete Jane Austen for my Mom for Mother's Day.
About Mistress, Miss M, I await your opinion with bated breath...

User avatar
Miss Moppet
Bibliophile
Posts: 1726
Joined: April 2009
Location: North London
Contact:

Post by Miss Moppet » Wed February 24th, 2010, 12:40 am

[quote=""Catherine Delors""]
About Mistress, Miss M, I await your opinion with bated breath...[/quote]

Whatever you do, don't bate your breath! Shipping is taking so long that there may be a casualty!! :D :(

annis
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 4585
Joined: August 2008

Post by annis » Wed February 24th, 2010, 1:19 am

I've noticed that the lines between YA and Adult fiction are getting much more blurred these days. And you can get odd things like a book being promoted as YA in one part of the world, and Adult Fiction elsewhere. This happened, for example, with Stephen Lawhead's "King Raven" series.

User avatar
Divia
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 4435
Joined: August 2008
Location: Always Cloudy, Central New York

Post by Divia » Wed February 24th, 2010, 1:40 am

I think Harry Potter, Twilight, Gemma Doyle Series and a few other heavyweights have helped to blur the lines between YA/Adult. Adults don't have to hide in shame for reading YA material and many teens are being drawn into adult titles for a variety of reasons, young MCs, interest in topic(historical time period) intriguing story.

Publishers don't run away from teens anymore. They have embraced them, which I think is great for teens and the industry.

Now, can all books be a cross over? Nah. But I love it that teen fiction isnt something that is taboo.
News, views, and reviews on books and graphic novels for young adult.
http://yabookmarks.blogspot.com/

Post Reply

Return to “Author Announcements”