Two questions really. I am a wannabe-author in a few Fantasy Novels that I have developed over time. Would I be better off pushing to Agents that it's Young Adult or Fantasy? Another question is with the main topic. Do you think the competition is harder out there for Young Adult or Fantasy? It's an explosive genre because of recent successes of Harry Potter, Hunger Games, and many more...Everyone wants a piece of that - well almost everyone. So I do believe it's easy to be overlooked. And a lot of the times I see a lot of agents looking for non-fiction, maybe to just off set the requests coming in? What do you guys think. I'm still on a path, sent some queries out, no response I did get rejected once and asked for a reason, they just said that they weren't focusing on the 'genre' at the moment. I was submitting it as fantasy then....
I may be wrong, but "Young Adult" in and of itself isn't really a "Genre" as such, but rather a "Class" or "Target Demographic" of writing. It is writing that is accessible to, and interesting to, Young Adults. In other words, your writing would be "Young Adult" target demographic, "Fantasy" genre writing. Or maybe more simlply "Young Adult Fantasy Literature". Unfortunately I don't know much about publishing, so I can't recommend precisely what you should call your writing for best success...
I have the idea that Young Adult stories are actually for all kind of ages... Because often many people of any age read them. While writing my stories I don't mind much these things because the genre might be satured, but what it really counts in the end is if your story is somewhat original. The "hero/heroine has no parents/only one parent and overcomes the EVOLS" is an overused plot model but there are a lot of ways to write it, I think. And they are often fantasy and for Young Adults... The point is that if your story is in that genre and target domegraphic naturally you shouldn't worry about it. Now, if you started writing with the idea of being famous and you decided you would write a Fantasy for Young Adults then I suggest you to think again, but it's not the case, is it?
You need to do some research into what the agents deal with if you haven't already. I have come upon some agents that will deal with everything except for mysteries; so maybe they just don't do fantasy. The other thing is that as Dryriver said, YA is more of a Classification or predeturmand demographic your shooting for but I think the best way around it is to promote it as a "Young Adult Fantasy" or Fantasy for Young Adults". This way they know the genre and they know the general reading level it is written for.
I'm curious on what you mean by the idea of writing to be famous? Writing should just be for the art itself vs any external factors. I guess if you wanted to write to be famous there are strategies to do that also, but that would most likely (not 100%) disservice your story and cheapen your story. Yeah, I think my novel is Young Adult Fantasy, I guess I have to just keep looking. I'll look around for success stories threads. Anyone know of any off the top of their head?
People that don't want to write, per se. They fell in love with the idea of being the next Steve Collins or JK Rowling and they want to write a story that will be famous and are afraid of facing the cold hard truth that in the beginning we all suck and we must write a lot before writing our first decent novel. They don't want the hard part of it -- and I guess that they worry more with how their novel will sell rather than the novel's quality. And that's why I said you don't have to worry if the genre is satured or not, as long as your novel is good.
It is hard to tell for sure but the numbers I ran across from the Library Journal said only 24% of books were for young adults. Now that was all books not just fantasy targeted for that market. I would think that would be small compared to population of young adults. That of course doesn't mean the entire population of young people would be part of that market demand.
If it were saturated, bookstore shelves would be lined with dusty YA books that can no longer be sold. The fact there are still shelf-clearing buying sprees prove the market is still lively.
Bingo. The market for good books is never saturated; though I guess if there were enough of them then the definition of 'good' might change .
YA is a 'market' not a 'genre'... within the YA market you'll find all the various genres... fantasy is a 'genre' [along with romance; western; thriller; crime; et al.] and can be targeting either the adult or the YA market... or both, as many do... no market [or genre] is ever 'saturated' to the point of it being useless to write for/in it... if you have a good story that's well-written, there will always be a chance some publisher will take it on... write whatever you want to write most, that you can write best... if you do that and have the dogged determination it takes to keep querying and submitting till someone bites, then it won't matter what genre it is, or what market it's aimed at...
