This post written by founder and managing editor Callie Stoker.
Have you heard of New Adult (NA)? It’s a book category that the publishing world started playing around with ten years ago and—at the time—was shopped around as a sort of “older YA”.
What’s interesting is how New Adult has actually found its place in publishing, and that it’s landed in a slightly different spot than anyone expected.
In our query letters we all have to declare our stories as a genre and demographic, or age of reader. The agent or editor needs to know not only what to expect from your book but where on the shelf it will go in a bookstore and which age group to market to.
When New Adult was first being whispered about, writers and publishing professionals alike wondered if it would really stick. Immediately there was polarization as to whether this was a needed category or if it was a fad that would just sizzle out and be forgotten.
With a decade of New Adult out in the world, let’s look at where it has taken up residence.
What hasn’t happened:
Although New Adult was at first hoping to fill the reader age gap between YA and Adult, it actually hasn’t done that at all. Why? Because it turns out that adults who want to read YA books like The Hunger Games and Twilight have no problem doing so, and teens who like to read adult kind of love shopping around the adult section, pulling Terry Brooks or Stephen King off the shelf. It was a category meant to fill a need that turned out not to be any source of pain.
What this means is that NA does not currently fill a demographic space. If a new writer came to me and called it a NA Fantasy, I’d have to let them know that isn’t a thing because right now, New Adult is not an age of reader category. Instead it has become a genre itself.
What it is:
New Adult, surprisingly, has made a small footprint as its own genre. While it certainly contains protagonists who are in their early twenties and may appeal to readers of the same age, New Adult is more about themes of independence, self-discovery, and sexuality. The coming-of-age stories that made YA stories popular stretched their wings into NA stories of new adults entering a grown-up world. Discovering who they are, what they want from their lives now that they have full control of them, and especially how they fit and function in relationships. The exploration of one’s sexuality is a major theme in NA books.
What’s interesting, is that for now NA has stuck primarily in contemporary writing and women’s lit. Probably because these genres deal most closely with the human condition. What hasn’t happened is NA leaking into more speculative genres such as sci-fi and fantasy. Although these stories often have themes of humanity, the specificity of entering the grown-up world and figuring out how to “adult” isn’t as pervasive or relevant in these genres.
So, say your own protagonist isn’t a teenager but isn’t fully an adult? Unless you are writing contemporary and focusing in on the NA themes, keep it to YA or Adult. And if you have something to say about these NA themes, give this new genre a try.