Two For Tuesday: Genre Grudge Match

Hang out with YA authors for awhile, and you'll probably hear us bemoaning the death of contemporary novels. But don't despair. I counted up all the YA deals from the past twelve months and was surprised to find that contemporary is alive and well.

So why the perceived slight? Because paranormal gets half the big bucks, and dystopian takes another quarter. But contemporary is hanging in there. I was surprised to find science fiction and "other" holding their own as well.

A few random thoughts:

  • This may look depressing if you write contemporary, but honestly? I had never heard of a contemporary getting six-figures, and these weren't celebrity-turned-writer deals. So I was actually pleased to see that 9%.

  • Several deals noted authors moving from one genre to another - and not all from realistic to paranormal.

  • Charts from five years ago, or five years from now, would likely show very different statistics. Don't write to trends. Write work interesting enough to start a new trend.

  • I write both, I love both, but my love of paranormal does not extend to trolls. No paranormal-bashing in my comments. Please and thank you.

Margin of Error Disclaimers:

  1. I'm terrible at math.

  2. Paranormal includes fantasy and anything the least bit supernatural-sounding.

  3. Dystopian includes apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic, unless the blurb specifically mentioned those as sci-fi.

  4. "Other" includes historical fiction and deals that didn't include blurbs.

  5. I counted deals, not individual books within deals.

  6. Only 30% of the deals I counted indicated size, so the second chart only represents 1/3 of the deals in chart one.

  7. A small number of six-figure deals are not represented in the second graph because when they weren't listed with the standard categories ("nice" through "significant").

  8. These figures were taken from Publisher's Marketplace deal reporting. I didn't download any statistics from their website- I counted the deals manually and assigned my own categories when necessary. I'm no genre expert and may have mis-categorized a few things.

  9. Some agents and editors choose not to list deals in Publisher's Marketplace, which means neither chart is a full representation of YA publishing.

  10. Did I mention I'm terrible at math?

  11. EDITED TO ADD: As pointed out by Tracy Buchanan, few UK deals are reported in PM, which made me realize I also forgot to mention that I haven't included the selling of foreign rights in these numbers.

Two For Tuesday is a weekly meme I made up when I couldn't think of anything to blog about. Post two of anything: book reviews, pictures, quotes, poems, songs, videos, rants, shout outs, whatever floats your boat. Just connect them somehow. That's it. Leave me a comment if you want to share!