The State of YA
Our time is here (again) - so what do we do with it?
Everyone who’s been in this business for 10+ years knows that publishing is cyclical.
In July, it’ll be 13 years since I started my first publishing job. Thinking back to that time, there are some very striking differences. Notably, while there was clearly still a market for it, SFF was much more niche. When I started at Pan Macmillan as an editorial services assistant, it was seen as a huge plus that I enjoyed SFF because they didn’t have anyone else on the team that did and that meant I would work on all the Tor books! I left in 2015 and returned a decade later, to find the Tor team had tripled in size and their books with extremely wide appeal. How times have changed.
My entry into children’s publishing in 2015 coincided with a big sea change, too. YA was on its way out after years of dominance, powered by big properties with movies attached such as The Hunger Games and Twilight. At Chicken House, we were riding on the tails of The Maze Runner when I arrived, the movie having released in 2014. The UK market felt exhausted with these YA blockbusters and attention turned instead to middle-grade, with a slew of ‘classic’, upmarket middle-grade books dominating the market for the next several years via the Waterstones Children’s Book of the Month slot, which didn’t exist for YA until 2025 - at Chicken House, it was The Girl of Ink and Stars that started everything. Throughout that whole time, YA was seen as ‘difficult’.
Now we’re back - but it’s different. Here’s the State of YA now, according to my observations… with an eye on what this means for you, the YA writer! (Note: because I am now in the UK, this is most relevant for the UK market - however, I do think a lot of this applies in the US too.)
Crossover is Queen
Generally, back in the 00s and 10s, YA was aimed towards readers aged 12-18. A book aimed at readers over 18 was adult by definition. We were starting to use ‘crossover’ by 2015, but back then it felt a lot more fluid - crossover meant capturing readers outside of the core, potentially younger as well as older. Now, it means specifically targeting older readers: YA readers are predominantly women between the ages of 18 and 35.
Why this has happened is a subject of some debate. As a 36-year-old woman, I’m wondering if it’s the ‘fandom’ effect - I mentioned Hunger Games, Twilight... For me, it was Harry Potter. For nearly a decade, I was obsessed with a book series that grew up with me (I was 9 when I read the first book in 1999 and graduating from high school in 2007 when the last book was published). Problematic as its author is today, I think these series had a huge impact on millennial fandom and our willingness to continue to live and breathe YA worlds.
But whatever the origins, it’s certain we’re living in a crossover world today, particularly when it comes to fantasy and romantasy (more on these below). This is manifesting in higher ‘content’ levels (sex, predominantly) and longer word counts at the upper end. It’s no longer unusual to find a YA fantasy with a wordcount of 100k, which used to be considered far too long.
Practically, what this means for YA editors is that we are also now in competition with adult SFF editors, which has been… frustrating for me personally.
If you’re writing crossover fantasy/romantasy, that’s great - this is your time. But remember, as an area of the market gets more popular, it gets more competitive! When I was an agent, my YA fantasy submissions outnumbered nearly all others - and even on the editor side, I probably receive more in this area than any other. A cracking, unique concept is perhaps the most important key to standing out.
Books for actual teenagers are a constant topic of discussion
All of the above means that we are underpublishing for real teens, which everyone agrees is a crying shame but no-one seems to know how precisely to fix. Efforts are being made to fill in the gaps - for instance, I’m working on a brilliant murder mystery series perfect for younger teen readers, The Common Criminals’ Club - but we haven’t yet seen the numbers and shelf space for ‘teen’ as a category that we really need to make it a thing.
It’s a real concern and we see a lot of readers, particularly boys, falling away after they age out of middle-grade. Books that seek to plug that gap are likely to be considered with interest - but agents/editors will also need to make a difficult case for trying to break out books in this tricky area.
Everyone’s asking what’s next after romantasy - but are readers?
If you spend 5 minutes in any industry meeting between professionals working in the YA space, the conversation will turn to ‘what’s next’? We’ve been riding this romantasy wave for several years now, where is it heading?
Looking at the sales figures, though, I’m seeing no current loss of appetite from readers. Romantasy is still flying off the shelves.
That’s not to say we’re not right to ask where it’s going. What I’m observing is a tendency towards the darker and the gothic - fantasy that treads on the toes of horror like recent YA Waterstones Books of the Months The House Saphir and Make Me a Monster. But if so, it’s an evolution, not a sudden transformation.
It’s impossible to second guess what readers will get obsessed with next. My advice to writers is always this: never try to write to the market, it changes too quickly anyway. But, if you are writing gothic romantasy or horromance, you might be just in time…
Thrillers still sell incredibly well
While we are seeing fantasy and romantasy perform incredibly well in hardback - especially with coveted subscription box slots and special editions - there are other genres and formats offering a viable alternative. YA thrillers often fly under the radar, but these paperback original releases are some of the best-performing I’ve noticed. Holly Jackson reigns supreme but there are also a host of other authors (particularly published by Scholastic, hats off to you!) doing brilliantly in this space - Kathryn Foxfield, Cynthia Murphy, and more recently Bill Wood.
These YA thrillers have a very distinct look and they are super hooky, perhaps because word of mouth (Booktok) is such an important tool for breaking out these novels. They are on the shorter side as compared to fantasy/romantasy, generally topping out at 80k.
If you’re writing a YA thriller or horror (these often go hand in hand), you’re in a bit of an evergreen space. Just make sure you’re focusing on your hook - how would this be pitched in 30 seconds on TikTok to make it sound absolutely unmissable?
There is a lot of opportunity right now in YA
Although readers are continuing to invest in romantasy and thrillers, the conversations that are happening behind closed doors in publishing are important for what’s next. I’m seeing lots of evidence of publishers seeking answers outside the box to questions like: how can we bridge the gap between MG and YA? How can we keep male readers engaged in reading through their teens? What can we do to continually improve representation in our books? What about contemporary YA novels? (Not everyone wants to read about dragons!)
The system in general is evolving rapidly, with an unprecedented number of self-published authors gaining traditional publishing deals - and it’s not all about being a bestseller already. Publishers are seeking self-published authors who are on the way up. AI continues to be a massive concern for creatives and publishers, but in some ways it’s shining a spotlight on how much we value human creation (which, on the whole, I think we do).
There’s certainly a lot of opportunity in this state of flux right now, for those willing to take the risks.
In other news, work is wildly busy and somewhat all-encompassing - though I’m hoping that’s because I’m catching up after being bedbound with flu for the first week of January (happy new year to me… sigh!). As usual, carving out time for writing is my constant battle, but I’m trying. Please, as always, let me know if you have any questions!
Until February,
Kesia
Many thanks for this, Kesia. When we write contemporary stories that include high school life, it’s ‘awkward’ that the starting age varies from country to country, from eleven to fourteen. Yes, I’m another writer of contemporary fiction for this age range, my latest story with a main character who’s thirteen and close to their fourteenth birthday. I’ve not known if to pitch it as upper-MG or low-YA. It’s useful to know trends.
I’ve infused the story with historical non-fiction and STEAM. Could these make it attractive to boys? We’ll see. From my experience as a parent and former high school teacher in the UK and Australia, rather than novels, if given a choice, many boys are more likely to select books of trivia; on true crime; sport exploits by famous individuals; how things work... Not all children get hooked on reading by listening to or reading stories.
Perhaps at least some reluctant kids would be more eager to read a book of any genre if our focus is simply on the joys of becoming a 'word and book person'. Do we encourage teens to write about crashing waves by using letters and words that heave and tumble on wave shaped lines, and in appropriate colours? What sort of artist’s book structures do they explore and create to display a text? Do teens smell and hold old and leather-bound books? Uniquely designed books in unreadable languages?
If children are given increased opportunities to explore, experience and savour the totality of the world of words, language, and books of every age and form, and to respond in their own way, just maybe some more boys will be tempted by the roller-coaster rides of emotions we provide in our novels. Though in a family, two children can have identical experiences, and one becomes a reader and the other one not. Sigh. Unfortunately, there's no guaranteed recipe.
There are such great insights into the current YA market in this post!